Living With Betrayal
by McNugget
Summary: A baby is poisoned and unhealable by magical remedies. Harry Potter is doing all he can to protect his son, but what happens when his son obtains something that Harry can not protect him from? M for adult themes and language. SEQUEL to 'Do You Trust Me'
1. Cold Shoulder

_**Chapter 1:**__Cold Shoulder_

**Friday, August 15th 2003**

The rich green eyes were wide with suspicion and question as they looked up at him.

"You're not even tired are you?" Harry asked, bouncing a little.

The tiny thing with the green eyes cooed at him. "They looked into each other's eyes, it with pleading curiosity, Harry with slight skepticism. Emerald green eyes met darker green eyes, and they just stared at one another.

"You should sleep, it's…" Harry moved the bundle of blankets to his right arm and checked his watch. He raised his eyebrows at the time. "It's two o'clock; I knew I should have woken you earlier this afternoon instead of letting you sleep all day."

Again, the little blob in the blankets gave a tiny peep, sucking on its tiny fingers.

"You think that just because you're cute, I won't make you go to bed?" This time, as if understanding Harry's words, the baby giggled.

"Dream on, mister," Harry spoke, his voice jumping up an octave or so. "You're going to bed right now. You've had your bottle, and you've been burped, so its time for bed." Harry leaned over the crib and lowered the bundle. As he did so the baby's face began to quiver in a pitiful way.

"Don't look at me like that." Harry said sternly, but gently. "If I don't teach you now, you'll never learn to sleep properly." The second Harry removed his hands from the baby's head and legs it began to wail long and loud. If it didn't stop, it was sure to wake the whole neighborhood!

"Kael, stop," he murmured. The wriggling bundle paused, looked up at Harry, and then continued to cry, but slightly softer now.

"I'm going now." Harry backed out of the room and shut the door. The volume of the crying was lightly muffled from behind the door. Harry sighed and leaned back on the door only to see Ginny coming out of their room.

"Did Kael wake you Gin?" Ginny gazed up at him, her face devoid of any remorse. Her answer was short and simple:

"Yes." Ginny did not hold back on telling Harry how she really felt where Kael was concerned. It was always the truth: the cold, hard, cruel truth. She had thought that with Nakesa gone things would work out, but she couldn't help but see Kael as a wedge between them. Harry sighed and let himself slide down against the door until he was sitting on the floor.

"I'm sorry he woke you Gin, but it really _isn't _his fault. He just has a bit of reflux and it's hurting his stomach." Again, there was neither sympathy nor empathy in Ginny's eyes. No 'oh I'm sorry the baby has a stomach ache, let me look after him and you go back to bed, you have the remaining Death Eater cases to handle tomorrow morning.'

No, Harry knew that if he even suggested it he would be sleeping on the couch.

"I have to work tomorrow Harry; I have to do the stock take, so I need to be able to count to at least twenty without forgetting what's next. I gave up my job at Hogwarts so that I could spend time with you but if I can't leave tomorrow until I've finished. Can't you just put a silencing charm on the door or something?"

Harry looked slightly appalled at the idea.

"Ginny, I need to be able to hear him. If …"

Ginny threw her hands up.

"Fine, just don't bother waking me up coming in when the kid is finally asleep!" and with that Ginny went back into the room. It was always 'the kid' with Ginny. Harry sighed; did she have to make this difficult? He remembered back to that day in the hospital, the day Nakesa was killed, the day Ginny suggested that Harry put Kael up for adoption.

"I can't give him away Ginny!" Harry had told her. "He's my _son_!"

"I'm aware of that Harry, but you're young. We're young. A baby would just make things difficult." Harry's expression did not change. He was still stern about keeping Kael. "Any anyway, look at his mother! He's got bad blood in him!"

"Ginny, that's a load of bullocks and you know it! Look at Sirius! Nearly his entire family were Death Eaters and he turned out ok! You don't know what it was like Ginny, to not ever have a memory of your parents or know that they were never there for you. I bet you were always playing games and taught to fly a broom with your family. I never had that. There is no way I'm letting him be put up for adoption!"

"FINE, HARRY! I'm _so_ sorry that I don't want you're love child living with me!" and with that Ginny had stormed away. Harry heaved a sigh again; he knew it must be hard for her. Every time she looked at Kael she must be reminded of Harry's betrayal. Harry himself didn't know how he would handle it if Ginny had gotten pregnant with Malfoy's child, and then he, Harry, was asked to play father figure to it.

All Harry could do now was wait it out and hope that Ginny eventually realized that Kael would be raised as her own if she'd just let it happen. Harry hoped to Merlin that this would happen before he got a permanent stiff neck from sleeping on the lounge.

* * *

**Saturday Morning, Aug 16th 2003**

Hermione lay on the hospital bed next to Ron.

"It's a disaster at home, Ron. Harry's always got his hands full with the baby, and has to bring all of his Auror cases home; he's still trying to find the remainder of the Death Eaters, I'm sure he'd love you're help.

"Ginny's restaurant is going really well; business is booming. Harry forgave Ginny for the whole… um… breakdown. She said she knew there was someone talking to her in her head when she slept with those guys, but because she was drunk, she thought it was just her own consciousness.

"Things are still a little tense between them; I think Ginny's afraid to get too close to Kael. I don't think she notices that Nakesa is gone and- though they are related- Kael is not Nakesa, or Anika, or whoever she was." Hermione looked over at Ron and kissed his forehead.

"Nakesa had a funeral the other day. I didn't go, nor did Ginny. Harry went with Kael; but not for him. He went with Kael, for his sake.

"They still don't know who killed her. Some think it may have been a Death Eater, coming back to make sure she didn't give away their whereabouts, seeing as they left her behind in the fight at the Malfoy mansion. They had to question Ginny, Harry and I. But they had no concrete evidence. They didn't even give us truth potion, maybe because she was a Death Eater. I don't know. They didn't really try too hard." Hermione looked down at Ron and a tear slid down her cheek. "Please wake up Ron, I need you. _WE _need you Ron. The baby and I; we need you."


	2. Miracles CAN Happen

**_Chapter 2:_** _Miracles CAN Happen_

**Saturday, August 16****th ****2003**

Harry rushed through the apartment picking up papers from the floor and placing them in a scattered pile onto the coffee table.

"Ginny?" Harry called, rushing into the kitchen whilst untangling his robes.

"Ginny?" Kael lay in his bouncy chair kicking with excitement, causing the seat to spring up and down.

Ginny arrived in the door to the lounge room; her hair and body in a towel, and a very _un-_impressed look on her face.

"Yes Harry?" she asked with mock happiness.

Harry rushed back into the lounge room.

"Ginny, there you are," he rushed over to her and kissed her on the cheek. "I need you to do me a favor."

Ginny looked over at Kael, bouncing away happily, overjoyed at having learnt how to jiggle himself.

"Oh?" she looked back at Harry and cocked an eyebrow.

"Ginny, I have an Auror meeting, it's to discuss the Death Eaters cases, Seamus may have figured out where Antonin Dolohov is. He helped Bellatrix Lestrange to kill Remus and Tonks."

"Hmm?" Harry knew Ginny knew what he was asking; Kael's giggles were heard in the background. He also knew that he would have to ask her plain out.

He took a deep breath and begun.

"Ginny, I really have to attend this meeting. I will only be a few hours and Lavender is in the hospital, Shesaris has a problem with her breathing and had to stay the night." Harry wished more than anything that Lavender's nine-month-old daughter was well so that Lavender could watch Kael, as selfish as that was.

"I really would appreciate it if you watched Kael."

Ginny looked over at Kael; bouncing away happily, then at Harry; who had big bags under his eyes from being up all night with Kael. How could she say no? If someone had information on who killed Tonks and Remus then she would want that information exposed.

"Ok Harry."

Harry's eyes grew wide.

"Really?" Harry asked. "You know I mean look after him, not just sit there and watch him, right?"

"Of course!" Ginny felt rather offended, "I know how to look after a baby!"

"Thank you!" Harry lifted Ginny and swung her around before placing her feet firmly on the ground and planting a kiss on her.

"I'll be back in a few hours! He should be good! Thank you!" Harry gathered his papers, kissed Kael on the head with a, "be good Kiddo," and rushed out the door.

Ginny sat on the couch; Kael across from her. She felt kind of awkward then felt stupid for it.

"Hello Kael." She said in her plain tone, not even catching his attention.

"You look a lot like Harry don't you?" She asked, surveying the baby's emerald green eyes and slightly olive skin, it seemed to have changed from a very pink colour in his two months of life. "But you have your mother's hair." Kael had thick blonde hair, and quite a lot of it.

"Harry loves you," this was defiantly a statement and it was followed by a sigh.

"Here's the truth Kael," Ginny pulled Kael's bouncer closer to the sofa in which she sat on; Kael did not look up at her, he merely grabbed one of his feet and begun to suck on his toes.

"I'm scared of getting close to you." Ginny heaved a sigh; Kael seemed oblivious to the fact that she was talking to him.

"There are so many reasons I don't want to get close to you. You're Harry's love child, your grandfather was Voldemort, your mother; Nakesa Lestrange, or Anika Rinalteg as we knew her. Those two people put a massive dent in my life, and have injured my brother."

Kael switched feet.

"You're not mine. What if I do let myself love you then I have my own kids? Will I still love you then? Will Harry love my kids as much as he so clearly loves you…? But that's not what I'm mostly afraid of. What if you find out what I did to your mother? What if you find out what I tried to do to you before you were born? What if anyone finds out? Will you hate me? Will you never speak to me again? It won't hurt as much if I don't let myself love you. But will you seek revenge? Will you hate Harry for staying with me? Will Harry even stay with me if he finds out?" Ginny became aware of the tears running slowly down her face.

"But your mother was a horrible person. A very horrible person and you shouldn't have to be torn between two sides… But I just don't want to love you and then hurt you, I don't want to hurt you Kael, I just can't."

At that exact moment, as if it had been written in a script, Kael looked up at Ginny, looked right into her eyes, and it made Ginny wonder.

* * *

Hermione lay, asleep, next to Ron. The sun was shining through the window and Hermione was slowly waking. 

It was ten in the morning and Hermione had still only had four hours sleep. She sat up slowly and an overwhelmingly sick feeling rushed over her. She jumped off of the bed and ran to the toilet. She held her hair and vomited into the toilet, dropping to her knees as she did.

Something grabbed her hair out of her hand and held it back for her. She turned around slightly to see a kind-faced woman with a ski-jump nose and glasses, holding her hair. She opened her mouth to say thank you but was forced to turn around, as only one thing came out of her mouth.

She waited a few more minutes before whipping her mouth on some toilet paper and flushing it.

She stood and turned around. The woman had her hair in a loose ponytail and was a few inches shorter than Hermione.

"Thank you," Hermione nodded.

"No problem… how are you coping?"

Hermione sighed. "Not very well," she felt a lump rise in her throat.

"My fiancé Ronald is in a coma and I just found out that I'm two months pregnant and he doesn't know it and my friend Harry Potter is parenting his son, who's mother is not the woman he loves, who is Ronald's sister and… and…" Hermione dropped to her knees and began to sob.

The woman knelt down and pulled her to her feet.

"Come here," she led Hermione though the opposite door that led to another patient room. In the room was a bed and in the bed lay a little girl.

"This is my daughter, Ronae. She was hit by a car whilst visiting her grandmother in the Muggle London."

Hermione wondered if this was supposed to make her feel better.

"She's eight years old and the doctors said she was going to die, as she stopped breathing, and oxygen got to her brain. They said she was brain dead, and would never wake up. Two days later… she woke up, as fine as ever, not a stutter. She has full function of her hearing, breathing and sight and she hasn't changed a bit. She's a fighter."

Hermione studied the girl sleeping in the bed. She had her mother's ski-jump nose and long chestnut hair.

"The healers said it was a miracle and defied all of the odds, but she did it." Hermione looked into the face of the kind woman.

"Nothing is impossible. I'm sure that if you hope, and believe in your heart, your fiancé will make it, no matter how bad the odds. Ronae did, he can too."

Hermione hugged the kind woman.

"Thank you," this time tears of gratitude fell down her cheeks.

"Are you ready to go Christina?" A tall man with black hair and a square shaped face arrived in the doorway, a trunk in his hand.

The kind woman nodded.

She made her way towards the man who was, without a doubt, Ronae's dad. He handed her the trunk and picked up his daughter.

"It's ok Ronae, were going home," Christina whispered in her sleeping daughter's ear.

She looked back to Hermione.

"Never stop believing in miracles, because if you do, they're least likely to happen. Keep believing, always." And she turned around and left.

Hermione stood for a second, a minute, an hour. She looked around the room until something on the floor, just under the hospital bed Ronae had been sleeping in, caught her eye. She moved and picked it up.

It was a doll; an old, beautiful doll with brown curly locks and a pink frilly dress. Hermione ran to the door and looked out to her right and left, but Christina and her family where gone.

Hermione hugged the doll to her chest, and crossed through the bathroom, back to Ron.


	3. On The Edge Of Insanity

_**Chapter 3:** On The Edge Of Insanity_

**Monday Evening, August 18****th**** 2003**

Harry sat on the couch, the T.V on low and Kael asleep on his rug on the floor.

The news flashed on the screen. A report of a break in at an electrical store was reported and video surveillance showed a group of guys in balaclava's smashing the glass of the front window and taking of with a TV. One of the robbers caught Harry's eye. He was fat and waddled out carrying a plasma at one end.

_Dudley_

Harry couldn't help but roll his eyes. He knew Dudley would have turned out like this sooner or later. He sighed as he thought of what Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would say.

"Oh dudders, why?" Harry imagined Aunt Petunia wailing.

"Why son? What did you need? You know you can always come to us if you need anything." Uncle Vernon would grunt.

Harry pushed the scene out of his head. He didn't want to think about his aunt and uncle; he never wanted to think about them again.

Ginny came bustling into the apartment; struggling against the wind as she shut the front door.

She looked at Harry, and he looked back at her.

She looked so beautiful to Harry, with her hair all over and her make-up slightly worn from work. She didn't need make-up to enhance her cheek bones, didn't need nail polish to slender her fingers, didn't need clothes to compliment her figure, she was beautiful, in every single way, just the way she was. She was like a red headed angel.

"What?" Ginny asked.

"Nothing," Harry turned back to his paper work and blushed at his thoughts of Ginny's pure, untainted, naked body.

Ginny sat next to Harry and watched Kael sleep on his rug.

"Harry, I'm really sorry about what I said to you, just please don't sleep on the couch anymore." Harry put down his quill and looked at her.

"I miss falling asleep in your arms and waking up just the same. I miss being near you and with you and having you wake me up with a kiss. What happened Harry; why can't we just go back to the way things were?"

Harry thought and then realized something, before he had a chance to think, he had already said it; "Ginny, things weren't ever like that…"

"Well they should be! I love you, and I'm pretty sure you love me! What is this wedge between us?"

Right then she knew the answer: _Kael._

"Let's give it a go Ginny. I miss you too, and I miss having feeling in the back of my neck, I think that couch has permanently damaged me."

Ginny laughed and leaned on Harry.

"I love you Harry." Ginny said. "Everything will be perfect one day."

"Yeah." Was all Harry could say, as Ginny tried to imagine everything being perfect.

* * *

**Wednesday, 19****th**** August 2003**

"Hermione dear, you should come home, we miss you." Hermione rolled her eyes, thankful that she was on the phone and not speaking to her mother in person.

"Mum, I'm ok, really, everything's fine."

"But where are you staying?"

"In the apartment I've always lived in Mum." Hermione lied. She didn't want to tell her mum that she hardly even saw the inside of the apartment she shared with Harry, Ginny and Ron. She wouldn't tell her mother that she was always in the hospital, next to Ron.

There was a big bang and crash and then a yelp through the phone.

"Mum? What's happened?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, Gregory! Sorry Hermione dear, your father's just fallen off of the ladder. He was pulling leaves from the gutter. I think he's thrown out his back. I better go."

"Ok, goodbye Mum," Hermione said down the receiver.

"Bye, dear," there was a click and the line was disconnected.

Hermione looked back at Ron. If it wasn't for his chest slowly rising and falling then she would have thought he was dead.

"Oh Ron," she whispered. "What am I going to do?" Hermione held Ron's hand and tried hard not to cry.

"It's been two months, you can wake up now. You've had your joke, now wake up." Hermione looked into Ron's still face. But no matter how hard she imagined his eyes fluttering open, they just didn't.

"Please Ron, I'm begging you! Do you want to see your baby? Do you want to see our first baby? Do you want to get married? Do you want to live happily ever after? All you have to do is wake up Ron. That's all you have to do; I know you can. Please wake up…" Hermione buried her head into Ron's chest and cried.

* * *

**Thursday 20****th**** August 2003**

Ginny lay asleep on Harry's chest as Harry watched the TV.

"You're so beautiful." Harry whispered in her ear and she stirred. He smoothed her hair and kissed the top of her head.

Everything was perfect… well, almost everything.

Harry slowly slid from under Ginny.

"Where are you going?" Ginny grumbled.

"I'll be back; I'll take Kael so you can get some sleep ok?"

"Are you sure? I can look after him." Harry smiled. "It's ok, you get some sleep, and I'll take him." Ginny smiled and shut her eyes.

Harry picked up Kael off of the rug and wrapped him up in a few blankets.

"We've got to keep warm Kael, its cold outside." He whispered to the sleeping baby.

Harry made his way out of the apartment as quite as he could.

He strapped Kael into his baby seat and got into the car.

When Kael was born Harry had decided to buy a little hatch back for when they decided to take trips outside of wizard London, and seeing as they lived in the outer, more muggle, area of London Harry decided that his Muggle neighbors weren't accustom to see people popping out of thin air every two seconds. So he decided to buy a car. It was very useful for when Ginny or Hermione decided to go shopping.

Harry started the ignition and the car purred silently. A few more prime reasons he brought the car was because it so easily put Kael to sleep and apparating didn't work too well with Kael's stomach. It took Harry a few spoiled shirts to figure that one out.

* * *

**Thursday evening, August 20****th**** 2003**

Hermione sat on the chair next to Ron's bed; a coffee in one hand and her head resting in the other. Her eyes slowly drooped.

_Sleep… what does that mean again?_

Hermione slowly drifted off.

All of a sudden, with no warning what so ever, she felt the foam coffee cup slipping out of her hand. She snapped awake and gripped onto it tightly only to puncture holes in the foam with her fingers, sending coffee all over her lap.

"Oh Merlin!" She growled jumped up, luke-warm coffee spilling out on her hand.

She shook loose of the coffee cup and the contents that hadn't spilled over her arm and shirt, spilled onto the floor.

"Ahhh!" she screamed, she couldn't do this anymore, and this room was driving her crazy.

She kicked the chair only to slip on the spilled coffee and land on her bum.

"Hermione?" Hermione's first reaction was to snap her gaze at Ron, but he was still.

She then looked towards the door to see Harry holding Kael.

"Oh Harry…" Hermione put her head in her hands and began to cry.

Harry rushed over her and helped her up. He then hugged her sobbing body, Kael in between them.

"Shhh, its ok Hermione. I'm sorry I haven't come all week, I've just been busy."

Hermione sobbed, "Its ok, I know you're busy."

Kael let out sounds of a struggle and began to cry.

"Oh, I'm sorry Kael – we were squishing him." Harry pulled back and smiled as Kael looked; wide eyed, at Hermione and Harry.

"He's so adorable," Hermione smiled.

"Here," Harry handed Kael over to Hermione and she held him as he looked up at her.

Hermione held Kael and he stuck his fingers in her mouth. Harry pulled his wand out and cleaned the mess on the floor and on Hermione's shirt.

"Thanks Harry," Hermione smiled.

Harry made his way over to Ron's bed. "No change?" He asked.

"No," Hermione replied simply. "He could wake up any time, yet he could stay in the coma, only time will tell."

"Is his brain fully functional?" Harry asked.

"Yes; but there is a lesser chance of him waking up because of the brain operation a while back."

Harry nodded, "Oh."

"I'm so scared." Hermione told Harry as Kael began to wriggle loose of the blankets.

"I know Hermione, I know."

Hermione thought about telling Harry everything then. About the baby and the kind woman with the daughter Ronae. But all she could come out with was: "How's Ginny?"

"Good," Harry replied. "We're going ok."

"That's good…" Said Hermione, trying her hardest to sound happy.

"Yeah, it is. It's about time something went right…"

At that, all intention Hermione had of telling Harry her problems went out the window, her friend deserved as little hassle as he could get, so she wasn't about to give him more to worry about… she just didn't know how much more she could take before it eventually drove her to insanity.


	4. Scars: New and Old

_**Chapter 4:** Scars: New and Old_

**Late Thursday, August 20****th**** 2003**

Harry sat with Kael in his arms.

He looked down at Kael.

_I love you so much, Kael._

Harry lifted out of his chair and carried the sleeping Kael to his room. He placed him down in his crib and tucked him in.

"I love you Kael," Harry whispered softly into the baby's ear.

He made his way slowly out of the room and quietly shut the door.

As he turned around he met Ginny in the hall.

"Hey," she whispered.

"Hey," he whispered back.

"Ready to come to bed?" Ginny asked Harry lightly.

"Yeah," Harry followed Ginny into the bedroom and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

* * *

**Very Late Thursday, August 20****th**** 2003**

Hermione sat at the window, the moon light streaming through it.

"I can't sleep, Ron." She whispered, even if Ron was awake, it was unlikely he could have heard her.

"I miss you so much, why won't you wake up?"

Hermione closed her eyes and she was with Ron, next to Ron, _in _Ron. She sat on the windowsill, recalling the last time they had made love, the last time Ron had kissed her, touched her, and loved her.

She thought about his expressions and how his hands felt on her bare skin. Felt how her body moved with his and how his kisses made her feel more than she ever had. No one could make her feel beautiful like Ron could. All he had to do was tell her she was beautiful and she believed him.

She looked down at her stomach. It was slowly growing. Hermione thought about the two and a half months she had spent in the hospital, at Ron's bedside. The baby was now 9 weeks old, 28 more weeks and the baby would be here, in the world.

A concept grasped at Hermione. What if Ron never woke up? What if he was pronounced brain dead? Would she be able to raise the child on her own?

Hermione felt so alone. As hard as she tried to think about Ronae and how she'd fought all the odds, Hermione just couldn't bring herself around to fully believing that everything would be ok.

She turned around to face Ron and nearly fell backwards at the site of who was standing at the door, out of visiting hours, in the middle of the night.

"Hello Hermione…"

_Oh, Merlin.

* * *

_

**Early Friday Morning, 21****st**** August 2003**

Harry awoke suddenly to the sound of squawking and a baby's hysteric cry. It took him a second to realize he wasn't dreaming.

_Kael!_

Harry jumped out of bed and bounded down the hall. He flung open Kael's door to see a huge hawk like owl fluttering hysterically, its feathers and claws scratching Kael's face.

Harry didn't have a chance to even _think_ about his wand. He automatically ran over to Kael's crib and pushed away the out of control bird, shielding his face as the owl scratched his arms. Ginny appeared at the door and Harry heard her scream at the sight. Next thing Harry knew Ginny had ripped the spare blanket off of the spare bed, thrown it over the crazy bird and thrown it out the window. It landed on the lawn with a thud, untwisted itself, and flew off into the night sky.

Harry scooped the screaming Kael off of the bloody sheets, his face was severely scratched and his eyes were squeezed shut.

"We have to get him to the hospital." Ginny told Harry in a panic.

Harry picked up a small sheet off of the side of the crib and wrapped Kael up in it to try and stop the bleeding to his body. He then ran out of the room. Ginny was about to follow when something caught her eye.

An enveloped letter lying on the bloody sheets in the crib.

'Kael.'


	5. Magic Isn't Always The Cure

_**Chapter 5: **Magic Doesn't Fix Everything_

**The previous night, August 20****th**** 2003**

Word after word was scribbled on the parchment.

What to write? What would get the message through?

Thoughts flew through the mind.

Would it work?

Would they know who the sender of the letter was?

Looking down at the announcement of the birth of Kael Sirius Potter a shot of adrenalin and dedication shot like a gun in the chest, through the body of the writer.

"Kael… oh Kael, how wonderful they thought you're life would be! How wrong were they?!" The letter was folded and tied to the scruffy owl's foot; it knew what to do…

* * *

**11:00pm Thursday August 20****th**** 2003**

"Hello Hermione."

_What the… how? Who?_

"Hello." Hermione tried to regain her composure but it was hard. Someone she had not seen in the longest time was standing right in front of her.

"I heard about Ron. Actually, I read it in the Daily Prophet. I would have come earlier but I had, uh, family problems. So Hermione, how are you?"

_This is just too much! First my fiancé falls into a coma, then I find out I'm pregnant and now THIS! This is just too much! I'm going to shut my eyes and on the count of three, when I open them again, he'll be gone._

_One…_

_Two…_

_Three…_

Hermione opened her eyes but the tall, brown haired man still stood in front of her. It had been nearly two years since their brief encounter and nearly five before that and now he was standing in front of her, asking how she was.

"Hermione, are you ok?" He took a step forward but Hermione stuck out her hand.

"Don't come any closer!" She sat back in the chair and rubbed her temple. He couldn't be here. He just couldn't. She had promised herself that they would go their own ways that they wouldn't see each other again, yet there he was, standing in front of her like a walking bloody sin!

"What are you doing here?" Hermione turned to the man who had gotten so much more handsome over the years.

"I came to see how you are, is that a crime?"

"Considering the circumstances, I believe it is."

"Circumstances?"

"Yes, circumstances, surely you know what I'm talking about _Wood._"

"Oh, you're calling me by my last name now are you? What happened to Oliver? Why do you see me as your enemy Hermione?" He took a step closer.

"No! No, no! Don't you come any closer!" Hermione jumped up and held out her hand to tell him not to step forward.

"Hermione, what's happened to you? Why do you think I'm here to wreak havoc?"

Hermione made her way over to the door. She pulled Oliver Wood into the room and shut the door. She opened her mouth to speak when she looked over her shoulder and saw Ron, as still as always, lying on the bed.

She took hold of Oliver's wrist and pulled him into the bathroom.

"What's wrong with you Hermione?" Oliver asked. He was looking so far into her eyes that it was like he was looking for her soul.

"Stop looking at me like that!" She hissed. "What's wrong with me?" I'll tell you what's wrong with me! Nearly two years ago we did something, we did something that we shouldn't have, something that took me forever to forgive myself for, and then you went and made it worse! So I made a vow never to see you again. WHY ARE YOU HERE?" Hermione panted and sat down on the toilet lid.

"Why can't you say it Hermione?"

"Say what?!" Hermione snapped.

"Say what we did. Why can you not just say that we made love? Why is it referred to as _what we did_?"

"Oh I don't know Oliver! Maybe because when I say we made love, the next thing that jumps into my head is the fact that you were _MARRIED_ _AND HAVE A SON_!"

"Was," Oliver mumbled.

"What?"

"I was married. Janelle ran of to live in Hawaii with some surfer called Malakai."

"Well now you're even aren't you?" Hermione hissed under her breath.

"Excuse you? You and I were a one night, spur of the moment, head in the clouds thing! Janelle and I were together for five years!"

"Well it wasn't all that faithful though, was it?"

"Shut up Hermione, you don't know everything. You think you are smart just because you read books and got perfect grades but you do not know anything about the real world and what goes on in it."

"I know nothing?! You know nothing! You think that it was ok to shag me whilst I was down! I know more about the real world than you ever will! I have had to fight for my life and the ones of those I love and all I get in return is to see the man I love stare death in the face whilst I sit around, hoping he'll wake up so that he can meet his child! You fly around on a broomstick all day! We're not in school anymore Oliver so why don't you just grow up!"

"I did not shag you whilst you were _down!_ You were perfectly able of making your own decisions! We both made a decision! I was stressed that a baby would ruin my life and you were questioning yours and Ron's relationship after he killed your first child in a psychotic rage! We just so happened to be in the same place, at the same time. We were there for each other at the time when we were most vulnerable. There was no forcing in it!"

"How can you make it sound so simple!? It took a big chunk out of my life!"

Oliver's fists were clenched and his emotions played across his face like a movie on a screen.

Anger…

Fear…

Sadness…

Question… This one stayed the longest.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Hermione asked, even her body language told Oliver she wanted an answer.

"Hermione, did you say you were pregnant?"

Hermione looked up at the man standing before her. All of this _flying around on a broomstick_ had done wonders to his body. He wore Muggle clothes that made him look casual but neat at the same time. Muggle clothing on ordinary days had become quiet popular over the years.

"Yes I did. But don't go taking back everything you just said because you feel sorry for me."

Oliver sighed, "I wasn't going to."

Hermione got up off of the toilet seat and left the bathroom, placing herself back where she usually spent her time; in the chair next to Ron's bed.

* * *

**2:00am, Friday Morning, 21****st**** August 2003**

Harry held Kael as he screamed and cried.

"Shh," Harry smoothed Kael's hair as the healer dabbed his cuts.

"Can't we do this any other way?" Harry asked over Kael's hysterical cries.

"I'm sorry Mr. Potter, that owl's nails were coated with a potion that resists magical treatment. The potion is illegal but that just doesn't stop some people."

Anger boiled in Harry's blood.

Who could have done this?

A Malfoy? Another Death Eater?

Who would do this to a baby barely two months old?

"Can't we do anything to stop him from being in such pain?" Harry held Kael as he twisted and wriggled in his arms.

"Well, there is one healer here who is familiar with Muggle remedies that may work."

Harry patted Kael's back.

"Yes, can you please get me that Healer?" Harry sat up straight in his chair and held Kael to his chest.

"Yes Mr. Potter." The healer rose to her feet and exited the room.

* * *

**Half an Hour Later**

Ginny and Harry sat together as the healer came into the room with a needle.

"What the bloody hell is that Harry?" Ginny asked as the healer wiped the sharp end with a cloth.

"It's a needle Ginny, Muggles use them to take blood."

Ginny sat, her hand over her mouth, as the healer extracted blood from Kael's arm.

"I'll just get these to the lab. In the mean time I'll need to bandage those cuts up. That one on his forehead may need gluing." Harry thought of the straight cut on Kael's head. It was about a centimeter and a half long and ran diagonally from the middle of his eyebrow towards his hairline.

"It won't scar will it?" Harry asked anxiously. He didn't know what he'd do if his son was stuck with a dorky scar on his head, though not in the shape of a lightning bolt it would still be a prime reason for the other kids to tease him.

"I'm not sure Mr. Potter, I hope for your sake that it won't."

Harry sat in the room with Ginny holding his hand, feeding Kael with the other.

They sat for what seemed like the longest fifteen minutes Harry had ever experienced when the healer finally re-entered the room. She looked shaken.

"What is it?" Harry asked, standing up.

"It seems that the potion that the owl's nails were coated in has affected Kael's blood."

"What do you mean?" Ginny stood as well.

"Any injury that Kael receives; be it magic or physical, can not be dealt with magically. If he breaks an arm, we can not magically fix it, it will have to be done the Muggle way. I'm sorry to have to tell you this Mr. Potter," The healer sighed and looked at them sympathetically.

"Is there anything that you can do? Maybe a blood transfusion or something?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Potter. There is no known cure for your son's condition. Again, I'm sorry."

Harry sat in the chair, his head tangled with thoughts. His son was more defenseless than any other wizard of his age.

"What age do other wizards with his… uh… condition live until?"

Well, if he gets to become an adult then he is fairly safe. It's the hexing, broomstick using, mischievous stage that's the most dangerous."

Ginny looked at Harry.

"Great, I'm going to have to put my son in a bubble." Harry sighed.

Ginny took Kael from his arms and he rested his head in his hands, feeling worse than he had in years.


	6. Will You Run Away With Me?

_**Chapter 6: **Confusion_

**Friday morning, 21****st**** August 2003**

Hermione slept restlessly. She couldn't stop dreaming about that _one _night she'd spent with Oliver Wood. She dreamt about him touching her and kissing her and being _in_ her and then she dreamt about afterwards. She remembered crying as she pulled on her clothes. She remembered taking a shower and still feeling dirty once she'd finished. She remembered telling Him she was sorry and then she remembered him telling her he was too. The whole time she remembered crying.

She remembered reading the paper two months later and seeing the announcement of the birth of Samarian Nathan Koran Wood; to happily married couple Janelle and Oliver Wood. She had cried hard then. She had committed the worst type of adultery. She had slept with a married man! She thought back to what she could possibly be thinking at the time of her felony but her brain was so full of thoughts that she could only remember not knowing what she was doing, or why.

Hermione tossed and turned on her mattress on the floor until eventually she opened her eyes. She got up and folded the blanket, placing it on a spare chair in the corner. She made her way over to Ron and kissed him good morning. She then placed the mattress neatly behind the chair and grabbed her bag, making her way to the bathroom to shower and dress.

When she emerged again she saw Oliver Wood, leaning on the doorframe.

"Surely you're not here to see Ron so will you please leave?" Hermione placed her bag on the seat; on top of the blanket, and slipped her feet into her shoes.

"Where are you going?" He asked as she pulled her hair back and banded it.

"I'm going to have breakfast, is there a problem?"

Oliver shook his head.

"Ok, well will you please get out of the doorway?" Hermione asked as she made her way over to him.

"How about I take you out for breakfast?" He asked quickly.

"What?" Hermione asked, but answered his question never the less. "No, I don't think so; the hospital food isn't too bad."

"C'mon Hermione, we can get bagels and pancakes and coffee. Come on, I want to make up for what I said yesterday."

Hermione sighed, "alright, but understand this. I'm only saying yes because I've been eating hospital food this last two and a half months… and you are paying. And also know this is not a date!"

"Of course not!" Oliver raised his hands but when he put them back down Hermione saw that the one hidden behind the doorframe was holding onto something. She steered her way around Oliver only to see he was holding the handle of a _pram!_

"Who… who is this?" She asked, swallowing hard at the child in the stroller.

There was, however, no need for Oliver to answer this question. Just by looking at the little boy, playing with the Velcro on his shoe, Hermione could tell that he was none other than Samarian Nathan Koran Wood; son to the what-seemed-like-but -wasn't-actually happily used-to-be married couple Janelle and Oliver Wood.

He had the same brown hair and the same deep chocolate eyes as Oliver. He had Oliver's nose and chin and entire face. The only difference was the shape of his eyes and, as Hermione saw when the Velcro undid and Samarian was able to pull off his shoe, when he laughed he had a dimple in his right cheek, Oliver however, did not.

"Hermione this is Sam, my son."

"I know," Hermione whispered under her breath.

"Sorry?"

"Oh, nothing. You didn't tell me we would have an additional guest joining us." Hermione asked as the little boy threw his shoe down the hall.

"Well, Seeing as Janelle - here you go buddy," Oliver retrieved the shoe and handed it to Samarian, "- is in Hawaii, I'm playing Mum and Dad."

Samarian threw his shoe down the hall again and Oliver went after it.

"What about your Quidditch career?" Hermione asked, although not in spite, in general question.

"Well," Oliver placed the shoe on Samarian's foot as he protested by kicking and screaming, 'off Daddy!'

"I'm not playing Quidditch at the moment. Janelle's sister Quinn looked after him yesterday but she works a lot so usually it's up to me."

_Clunk_

Samarian had gotten the other shoe off and thrown it down the hall.

"Samarian Nathan Koran Wood, keep your shoes _on!_" Oliver picked up the shoe and placed it back on the boy's foot.

Samarian made a grab for the Velcro but Oliver gave him a light smack on the hand. Samarian pulled his hand and began to cry, long loud wails, more like screams.

Hermione made her way over to the front of the stroller and kneeled down in front of Samarian.

"That didn't hurt." She said calmly, Samarian sucked in a sharp breath and looked, wide-eyed at Hermione, kneeling before him. "Look, you don't even have tears in your eyes! You just make the noise so people think you're sad." Hermione stood up and Samarian list blinked at her.

"Impressive." Oliver muttered.

"UP!" Hermione looked down to see Samarian with his arms above his head.

"UP!" He clapped his hands above his head and bounced in his seat.

Hermione looked over to Oliver who merely nodded.

"What do you say?" Hermione asked Samarian.

"UP!"

"What's the magic word?"

Samarian bounced up and down and babbled a series of words that made no sense.

Hermione laughed, but looked at Oliver. He nodded and she undid the little boy's seat belt; lifting him out of the pram and onto her hip.

"I was talking about _please_ but Higgery-what-ever-you-said will have to do."

* * *

**Friday Night, August 21****st**** 2003**

Harry placed the bottle in Kael's mouth.

Kael sucked robustly on it. Ginny places a hand on Harry's shoulder and then rounded the lounge and sat beside him.

They were finally back home - in their apartment on the outskirts of London. Kael's injuries were bandaged up and the cut on Kael's head was sewn up.

"How can they do something like that?"

"I don't know who sent the owl, but it has to be one of the Death Eaters."

"Yes, I know… Harry?"

"Yes Ginny?" Harry asked her, the bottle slipping from Kael's mouth.

Ginny blushed, "How can you glue your skin back together?"

"Oh, that."

Kael's sucked on the bottle and Ginny and Harry both watched him.

"The healer said that there is only a slim chance that the cut will scar."

Harry sighed as Kael's eyes began to close and his sucking slowed down.

"Harry, what are we going to do?"

Harry knew that Ginny wasn't talking about the gluing of Kael's cut anymore.

"I don't know. He can be so easily hurt now. Just a simple knock to the head can kill him. Did you know that it takes Muggles at the hospital up to twenty minutes to stop bleeding? With the right spell you can stop it right away. And do you remember when Ron got that clot in his brain? All they had to do was open up his head and tip in a few drops of a potion. Sure, cutting into his head was the dangerous bit but if that ever happened to Kael they'd have to dig out the clot! And what if he gets cancer? We can't cure cancer but we can stop it from becoming aggressive and make it something that someone can live with, the Muggles can't!"

Ginny sat in silence with Harry breathing heavily next to her.

"What if this is all part of the Death Eaters plan? Kael is your weakness Harry. They know that."

"I'm absolutely convinced that this is part of their plan. The first thing I see we have to do is move. We have to move as far away from the wizarding world as we can; to America or Australia maybe. We can't stay so near Wizard London. They'll find us too easily."

"But what about your job Harry? I can floo or apparate to and from 'La De Da' but what about your job? You can't give up doing what you love."

"Well since Kael was born I haven't been doing too much other than office work anyway. I'll just get my cases sent to me. Everything will be ok Ginny." Ginny kissed Harry and stood up.

"I'm going to go to bed now. I'll just move the cot to our room ok?"

Harry nodded and smiled.

As Ginny entered Kael's room she saw the letter laying, un-opened on the dressing table.

She opened it up and read it.

_Dear Kael,  
Well, you have made it. You made it and now you are safe… or so everyone thought. We know where you are Kael. We are not planning on killing you, not yet. We have plans for you, big plans. This is just to give you a taste of what it feels like to be helpless. There is much more to come, trust me. Killing you would just be too easy. Sure, Harry would be sad, but he would spend his life hunting us down. Now, it would be nice to watch him waste his life looking for us, but we have bigger plans for you. We won't kill you… we will do much worse. _

_You'll never know when to expect us. You will live in fear until the day we come after you, and even if you don't, Harry will.._

Ginny read the letter again and then turned it over; there was nothing on the other side, no signature or trace of who the letter could have been from.

"Ginny, have you got the cot ready?" She heard Harry shout from the lounge room.

"Nearly!" she yelled. She shoved the letter in her pocket. She had no intention of giving it to Harry. She would not alarm him with this letter that consisted of a lot of _when_-'s. _When _they came for Kael Ginny would be ready. After all she'd done it was the least she could do for the helpless child.


	7. Sittin' in a Tree, K'I'S'S'I'N'G!

_**Chapter 7: **__Wakey Wakey, Rise and Shine_

**Saturday Morning, 23****rd**** August 2003**

"So how old is Samarian?" Hermione asked; the little boy sat in his stroller, sucking the ice-cream out of the holes in his waffle.

"He's two years, six months from yesterday."

Hermione counted back the months. Wow, Ron had been in his coma for three months and four days… that meant that Hermione was around four months, six days pregnant.

"Are you ok Hermione?" Oliver caught her gaze and she nodded her head.

"Yeah, I was just figuring out dates. Did you know that my baby will be due around February 9th?"

Oliver looked amazed. "Really, you're only four months pregnant?"

Hermione frowned, "what is that supposed to mean?"

"No, no, don't get me wrong, I wasn't calling you fat or anything. It's just Janelle was about your size at six months, that's all."

Hermione shrugged, "I've been reading, and the size and weight you get from pregnancy can vary from person to person."

She took a sip of her tea, she'd been reading up _quite a lot_ on pregnancy and caffeine is supposedly not good for the baby.

Ever since Oliver turned up at the door of Ron's hospital room a month and a day ago she had been spending quite a bit of time with him.

She still had lunches and brunches with Ginny and Harry but they didn't always have that much time to talk. They had contemplated moving about a month ago and still hadn't decided. They had been so busy with constant super valence for Kael and work and also trying to find time for them, especially since Kael had just recently began trying to sit up.

Ever since hers and Oliver's breakfast, lunch and dinners became an every-second-day thing Hermione had been feeling less and less lonely.

She still missed Ron. Merlin, did she miss him! She would pray and pray for him to wake up. Every day and night, but having Oliver round was like having someone to listen and talk to. Oliver gave her a stack of baby books that he had used whilst Samarian was a baby. Hermione was able to see Samarian's behavior and instead of reading her other books she was constantly caught with a 'Baby Biology' or 'Pregnancy for Beginners' book in her hands.

"So, Hermione, have you had an ultra-sound yet?" Oliver asked, taking a bite out of his beagle.

"No, I'm due for one next week."

"Mmm!" Oliver nodded; his mouth full of Beagle.

Hermione sat for a second, tracing circles over her stomach, thinking of the ultra-sound. It was scheduled for Wednesday; four days from now. She hoped Ron would be there to see it. He'd be so sad if he missed out.

"So, have you gone back to work?" Hermione asked.

He shook his head and swallowed his mouthful.

"No, I don't think I will be able to until Sam goes to school. I don't mind having him around, he's a joy-"

Hermione looked down at Samarian, who at that exact second, threw his soggy waffle at the back of an old lady's head. The lady turned around and frowned.

"Most of the time - I'm so sorry ma'am." Oliver stood and picked up the waffle, placing it in the closest bin. "Naughty boy, Samarian! Don't throw food, you eat your food." Oliver growled.

"No! It yucky!" Samarian yelled at his father.

"Well give it to me then, don't throw things, - I am very sorry, he didn't mean any harm." Oliver explained to the woman.

"That's quite alright, I remember when my Rodney was a boy. Oh gosh did he make a mess!" The old-ish lady smiled at Samarian and her companion flicked his wand, clearing the mess from the back of the lady's head.

"Anyway, he's good most of the time, I just miss adult conversation. My parents are in Scotland and most of my friends are busy with their Quidditch, most of them don't have kids, as they are at the peak of their athletic career, so they don't really understand what I'm going through… Sorry to complain, I really enjoy our meetings."

Hermione smiled, "It's alright, and I understand what you're going through. This thing-" Hermione jabbed her finger at her stomach, "- hardly lets me sleep and when I'm awake I have my head in the toilet most of the time. I don't understand how I get so sick. My mother was only sick in the mornings whilst pregnant with me and it only lasted two months. When I was two months pregnant I was spewing up my breakfast, lunch and tea. But it's slowed down now."

"Ahh yes, I remember Janelle's morning sickness, horrid for both of us… So what about you? Did you teach at all this year?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, Ron fell into his coma two weeks before the beginning of the year so I sent a letter telling the school I probably wouldn't be back for a while and a week later I found out I was pregnant so I wrote again, telling them the news, so I'm on paid leave."

Oliver nodded, taking another sip of his coffee.

The two sat and ate the remainder of their food and sat in general conversation when something came bustling through the crowd, shouting Hermione's name.

"Hermione, Hermione!" It was the nurse that Hermione had told she was going out. She always told someone where she was going, just incase something was to happen.

"Hermione!" Hermione stood fast, bumping the table with her stomach and knocking lukewarm coffee all over Oliver.

"Sorry!" Hermione insisted. "What is it Amanda?" she asked the aging nurse as she made her way towards her, swerving through the tables and chairs.

"Come quick! He's awake!"

"Oh my gosh!" Hermione screamed with joy. "I'm sorry Oliver, I have to go! Ron's awake!" She ran through the crowed outside café, her heart skipping.

_He's awake! He's awake! Yes, yes, yes!_

Hermione ran all the way with Amanda to the entrance of the hospital. She ran down the corridor all the way to the door of Ron's room, and sure enough, there he sat, in his bed, smiling at her, a grin as wide as the corridor she had just ran down.

"Oh Ron!" She practically pounced on him, tears streamed down her face.

"I can't believe you're awake. Oh Merlin, thank you!" Hermione planted several quick kisses on Ron's lips.

"I… can't… believe it!"

"Hermione," Ron muttered out the side of his mouth.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, continuing to kiss him.

"We have an audience," he mumbled.

Hermione spun around to see Mr. and Mrs. Weasley who guided Teddy into the room. George, Bill; carrying Victoire on his shoulders and a very pregnant Fleur, Lavender and Seamus; who was carrying Shesaris, and Dean Thomas.

"Oh, sorry." Hermione smiled sheepishly and took a step back from Ron.

"Oh, Ronnykinns!" Mrs. Weasley shouted, running over to Ron and planting kisses all over his face, similar to the ones Hermione had given him.

"Mum… MOM! Gee off mey!" He mumbled, spitting out chunks of his mothers hair that had been sucked into his mouth as he had tried to breathe.

"Oh, sorry Ron, It's just so good to see you!" Mrs. Weasley took a step back with Hermione.

Ron looked pleased to only receive a hug from his father and eldest brother.

Dean smacked him lightly on the back, Fleur went to kiss him on the cheek but stopped and hugged him instead. Teddy climbed up on his bed, "I haven't been on a broom since you went to sleep! You have to hurry up and get out of the hostible so you can take me!" he complained. Victoire was sat at the foot of his bed and she gave him a hug whispering to him that she was 'vewy happy zat he was finawy awake.' Shesaris just shied away from him, cuddling into Seamus' shoulder as Seamus gave Ron a brief 'man hug'.

"So how have you all been?" Ron asked.

"We've been good, dear. Even better now that you're awake. I was just baking with Teddy when we got the news. Everyone was over for Percy's 27th birthday today. He not coming until tonight but I'm sure he'll bring Paige to come and see you. She's getting really good at talking. She has whole conversations and you actually pick up a lot of what she's saying." Ron knew his mother loved having grandchildren. "But Hermione has something she'd like to tell you," Mrs. Weasley practically skipped; moving aside to let Hermione through, seeing as the room had become rather crowded.

"Ron, I- I'm pregnant!" Hermione declared.

Ron's eyes looked as though they were going to fall out of his head as his gaze dropped from Hermione's face to her stomach.

Everyone waited and watched as Ron continued to stare at Hermione's stomach.

It seemed like forever but finally a smile spread across his face, even bigger than the one before (if that was possible).

"That's _bloody terrific_!" He pulled Hermione towards him and into a hug. This time it was his turn to ravish Hermione in kisses.

"We're all so happy for you Ronny." Mrs. Weasley beamed.

"Yes son, we know you and Hermione will make excellent parents."

Ron smiled stupidly at his family and friends.

"Well, we better get going; we'll come and visit you tomorrow if you're not out of here by then." And with that the Weasley clan moved out of the room, leaving only Hermione and Ron.

"Now, where was I?" Ron asked, kissing Hermione again.

"Um, Ron?" Hermione asked.

"Mmm?" Ron kissed her again.

Hermione pulled back and jerked her head towards the door.

Ginny and Harry stood at the door, smiling in on the scene.

Ron laughed and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"Sorry bout that."

Hermione scooted down and sat on the end of Ron's bed.

"No, don't mind us!" Harry laughed.

Ginny stood next to Hermione with a sleeping Kael in her arms as Harry gave Ron a hug.

"Here, I'll hold him." Hermione smiled, holding out her arms to receive Kael.

Ginny handed him over and went around to the other side of the bed to hug Ron.

Hermione looked down at Kael. He was so cute; with his button nose and tiny features. He slept soundly in her arms. Hermione stroked a finger down his cheek.

Maybe having a baby wasn't going to be so hard to do after all, now that Ron had woken from what seemed like his never-ending sleep.


	8. Baby Biology for Beginners

_**Chapter 8: **__A Good Nights Sleep_

**25****th**** August 2003**

Ginny held chilled lemonade as stood on the porch and watched Harry sit on the picnic rug, on the grass, with Kael. Toys scattered the checkered blanket and Harry sat behind Kael as he tried to teach the little boy how to do a puzzle. Kael, however, just gargled and sucked on the pieces. At nearly three months he had been more and more determined to sit up lately, but Harry wouldn't leave him without something soft behind him.

"Look Kael," Harry explained. "You put the puzzle pieces on the board." Harry pried the piece out of Kael's hands and stuck it to the puzzle board. Kael made a sound that was a cross between a screech and a scream then picked up the puzzle piece and stuck it back into his mouth.

"I think we might have to put these away until he's a bit older." Harry laughed as he took the lemonade from Ginny, giving her a kiss.

"Mmm," she smiled, sitting across from Kael.

Kael threw himself backwards into Harry's stomach, bouncing a little.

Ginny smiled at Harry as he sat the baby boy up again.

"How about we go out tonight?" Ginny asked Harry.

"Um… sure, where would you like to go? We could go to Sammy's Pizza, Kael loves the slide there." Ginny put a hand on Harry's arm.

"Harry, I mean just us. We haven't gone out for dinner since Kael was born."

Harry's smile wavered a little.

"I don't know Gin. Kael's still so little."

"I'm sure Hermione and Ron wouldn't mind looking after him. They just went to Hermione's ultra-sound, I'm sure they'll be back before six. Come on Harry, do you even remember when the last time we had sex was?" Harry clamped his hands over Kael's ears.

"Yeah, about two and a half months ago…"

"Exactly!" Ginny wined. "_Ten weeks! _I'm 22 Harry! Now that I have you roped down we should be shagging at least every second day!"

Harry's eyes were wide with astonishment.

Ginny shook her head, her long red hair flopping into her eyes. "Sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me." She laughed and turned rather red in the face.

"Tonight!" Harry surprised Ginny by saying. "We'll go out for dinner and… and desert and… and…" Ginny laughed.

"Harry, you're acting like a virgin teenage boy who was just given entry to a strip club." Ginny giggled.

"Oh, you're much better than a strip club." Ginny laughed and Harry leaned over Kael and kissed her.

* * *

Hermione sat on the examination table, Ron holding her hand as he sat beside her.

"Do you know how many weeks you are Mrs. Weasley?" Hermione smiled a little at being called 'Mrs. Weasley' not bothering to correct Jane; the aging nurse who she had become quite friendly with whilst Ron was in his coma.

"Seventeen weeks." Hermione smiled.

"Really?" Jane seemed sort of surprised.

"Yes…" Hermione replied skeptically.

"Ok, are you ready?" Hermione nodded.

Jane waved her wand at Hermione's stomach and, just like an over-head projector; a picture appeared on the wall in front of them.

Ron squinted. Was that supposed to be the inside of Hermione's stomach? It looked more like a bunch of funny black spots.

"Well that's the placenta, and there is the womb. And the fetus, oh…"

"What is it?" Hermione insisted, a wave of worry rushing over her.

Jane turned to Ron and Hermione and smiled. "Congratulations Mr. and Misses Weasley, you're having twins!"

There was silence in the room for what seemed like a very long half a second.

"We're having what?" Ron stuttered as if the healer had just told him he was having a couple of pineapples.

"You're having twins."

"Twins?" Hermione turned to Ron. "We're having twins!"

Ron laughed with joy as he hugged Hermione.

"Oh my gosh!"

Jane smiled. "Now I want to see you for check-ups! We need to be a lot more cautious with twins."

Hermione nodded her head briskly. "Yes, yes. You name the next appointment and we'll be here!"

Jane discharged Hermione and she and Ron grinned stupidly all the way down the hall.

* * *

"We're having twins!" Ron shouted into the apartment.

"What?" Ginny sat up from where she had been laying, on the floor next to Kael.

"We're having twins!" Hermione smiled widely as she shut the door.

"That's excellent!" Ginny rushed over to Hermione and wrapped her arms around her.

"Oh my gosh, congratulations!"

Harry appeared in the lounge room.

"What's all of the shouting about?" Harry asked, taking a bite out of an apple from the fruit bowl.

"We're having twins!" Ron smiled.

"Wow!" Harry put down his apple and hugged Ron, then Hermione.

"That's great." Harry smiled.

"Great, it's bloody fantastic!" Ron declared.

Harry and Ginny laughed and Harry picked Kael up as he began to cry, stunned by the noise.

"Oh, sorry mate." Ron whispered.

"Nah, its ok, he's been a little grumpy lately; I think he's teething." Harry handed Kael his little bottle which had been filled with water. Harry turned his eyes back to Hermione and Ron, only to see them looking at him rather strangely.

"What, do I have apple in my teeth?" Harry asked, swapping Kael to his other hip and picking at his teeth.

"No, it's just… I remember you in your first year Harry. You were this rather emaciated little kid with broken glasses; I never imagined you as a father." Hermione smiled amiably.

"What, so you didn't think I'd ever have kids?" Harry asked, he didn't particularly sound offended, but he didn't sound too sure that he wasn't being affronted.

"No, I didn't mean I thought you'd be a bad father, I just couldn't imagine it… but it suits you." The four stood smiling until Ginny made a comment that had an insecure affect on Hermione.

"I was reading a few baby books when I went looking for a cook book the other day and it's really quite funny. You know you can't learn to look after a baby by reading 'Baby Biology' and junk like that, you really have to learn first hand Hermione."

Hermione tried not to show the glitch in her smile as she thought of the 'Baby Biology' book that sat in her bag. What did Ginny mean you couldn't rely entirely on a book for information on raising a child - or in her case _children_? That was the only thing Hermione felt sure about; the fact that if she read as many baby books as she could in the following six months she couldn't possibly screw up, but that wasn't what Ginny had just told her.

"Oh Merlin." Hermione suddenly felt rather dizzy.

"What is it Hermione? Are you feeling sick, should we go back to Saint Mungos?" Ron grabbed hold of Hermione's hand as she sat down.

"Ron, what if I'm a bad mother? What if I can't look after both of them? What if I pay one too much attention and the other not enough?" Hermione began to breathe faster, quickly hyperventilating.

"Hermione, calm down!" Ron sat next to Hermione and cupped her cheeks in his hands. "Breathe! I'll be there to help remember! Now repeat after me, I will be a good mother."

"But what if I'm not Ro-"

"No, repeat after me, 'I will be a good mother.'"

"I will be a good mother."

"I will love them unconditionally."

"I will love them unconditionally."

"George is the sexiest guy in all of London."

"What about me?"

"You look the same as me Teddy."

Hermione cocked an eyebrow and looked past Ron. George stood in the front door with Teddy by his side, looking just like a miniture George. Teddy had been four the first time he had morphed into George. Everyone sucked in his breath and hoped that George would not be too painfully reminded of Fred. However, all he did was laugh and now when ever Teddy got the chance he tagged along with George.

"You wish." Hermione rolled her eyes.

"What?" Teddy asked innocently, a perfect imitation of George.

"It was worth a try." George added.

"What are you two doing here?" Ron asked, letting go of Hermione's face and holding her hand lightly.

"We just thought we'd join the baby brigade." George smiled.

"Hello little messy maker." Teddy cooed at Kael.

"You're having a baby?" Ginny asked George.

George shook his head.

"No, I'm not, although Teddy here…" George pocked Teddy lightly in the stomack causing him to laugh.

"Stop Georgy!"

"Ok, I'm sorry. So how'd the ultra-sound go?" George looked, adding in a baby face to leave Hermione wondering if they were mocking her.

"Good… we're having twins."

George's jaw just about hit the floor.

"You're having twins?" The look of astonishment didn't linger for long. It was replaced with a look of tomfoolery.

"What are Twits?" Teddy asked, getting off of the floor where he sat infront of Kael.

"Mione's having _two_ babies." George laughed at Teddy, not bothering to correct his mispronounciation.

"_Two babies?! _You must have done a lot of kissing!"

Hermione and Ron looked at George who just shrugged.

"What are you two knuckle heads up to?" Ron asked, giving Hermione's hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Oh nothing," George smirked.

"Nothing at all," Teddy grinned, bouncing on his heels.

"So what did you two want anyway?" Ron insisted.

"Oh right. Angelina would like you guys to come to ours for dinner next weekend to celebrate."

"What are we celebrating?" Ginny asked.

"Were celebrating our engagements." George smiled.

Harry looked at Ron, Ron looked at Hermione, Hermione looked at Ginny and Ginny smiled and announced that they'd 'love to attend'.

"Aright then," George clapped his hands.

"We'll see you all Saturday night!" Teddy waved as George bent down, Teddy jumped onto his back and they left the apartment.

Ron, Harry, Hermione and Ginny stood in silence.

"It's so good to see that Teddy and George are so close." Hermione finally spoke.

The clock chimed six and everyone seemed to jump a little.

"Oh, right. Hermione, Ron… Harry and I were wondering if you minded looking after Kael whilst we went out to dinner. If you wanted to go out and celebrate the twins we're fine with that, but he's had a long day so he'll probably be asleep soon, then you'll have the house to yourselves." Sure enough Kael had long dropped his bottle of water and was slowly falling asleep lying on his stomach.

"Sure," Hermione smiled. "I can use as much practice I can get." She sounded confident but there was still a hint of worry in her voice.

"Yeah, you two kids go out and have fun." Ron winked at Harry who just shook his head and smiled.

"Great! Thank you Ron, Hermione." Ginny hugged Hermione and Harry left the lounge room to put Kael down to sleep.

* * *

Hermione lay on the sofa, her head resting on a pillow on Ron's lap as they watched the television.

Crookshanks jumped up onto the couch and meowed; ever since Kael had been born he hadn't been getting as much attention as usual. Harry had asked Hermione if they could keep him in the backyard whilst Kael was a baby but Hermione had a better solution, she put a restriction spell on Crookshanks, making him unable to touch Kael.

"Hello Crookshanks," Hermione patted the cat. She saw Ron look at it and then look back at the television, if Crookshanks had of jumped up on the couch with Ron five months ago he would have been shooed away. Even though Scabbers the rat - who had actually been Peter Pettigrew - had left in Ron's third year he still didn't like Crookshanks much.

Hermione was nearly asleep when she was awoken by Kael's cry.

"I'll get him," she jumped up rather quickly. "Then I think I'll go to bed, I'll meet you there." Hermione kissed Ron and trudged off down the hall.

"What's the matter?" She asked Kael, picking him up out of his crib.

He continued to cry.

"Now what did that book say?" Hermione muttered to herself, trying to recall the section on crying, in her Baby Biology book.

"A baby's cry can have different meanings," Hermione bounced Kael a little, "They can be hungry, lonely, stinky or just…" Kael let out a tremendous burp and stopped crying. "…or just have wind." Hermione smiled, rather pleased at herself.

She carried Kael into the hall and placed him in the bassinette.

"How about we give Mummy and Daddy a rest hey Kael?" Hermione wheeled the baby into hers and Ron's room; got changed into her pajamas and climbing into bed, just as Ron entered the room, climbing in after her.

* * *

Ginny and Harry stumbled through the door of the apartment.

"Steady Ginny," Harry steadied himself, holding up a very intoxicated Ginny.

Ginny giggled and then hiccupped.

"Oh, sorry Harry. Sexy Harry, strong Harry, Sss-_MY_ Harry!" Ginny giggled at her comment and Harry shook his head as he led her down the hall to their room.

"You know what we should do Harry?" Ginny giggled.

"What should we do Ginny?" Harry asked her, sitting her on the bed and removing her shoes.

Ginny grabbed hold of Harry's shoulders and pulled him closer so that she could whisper in his ear.

"We should have _sex_." She whispered, as if her parents were in the next room and may hear.

"You're a little drunk don't you think Gin?"

Ginny shook her head.

"No, no. I'm not drunk." Harry laughed and kissed Ginny on the neck.

"You sure?" He asked; trailing kissed along her color bone.

"Mmhmm." Ginny hummed.

"Is that nice?" Harry whispered in Ginny's ear as he trailed kisses down her jaw and up to the other ear.

"Yes." Ginny whispered.

"How about this?" Harry asked as he trailed kisses down Ginny's neck; towards the top of her shirt. He'd pulled her shirt up to her ribs when Kael's cried drifted through the wall.

"No don't stop!" Ginny insisted as Harry sat up.

"It's Kael, he's probably hungry, I better go and…" Harry stopped, noticing that Kael's cries had stopped.

"I'll be back in a second." He whispered to Ginny.

He got up and made his way into the kitchen. He could see the fluorescent light pouring into the lounge room. As he entered the kitchen he saw Hermione take a bottle out of the microwave, test its temperature on her wrist, and then put it in Kael's mouth.

"Do you want me to take over?" Harry asked Hermione.

Hermione spun around, not aware she was being watched. She let out a breath.

"No thanks Harry, I've got it. If that's ok with you?"

Harry smiled. "It's fine with me! Thank you." And he turned around and went back into the room.

"Now where was I?" He asked Ginny, sitting on the bed.

"Ginny?" Harry rolled Ginny over only to have her swat him away and continue snoring… she was asleep.

"Goodnight Ginny," Harry kissed her on the cheek and climbed into bed next to her, thankful at being given the opportunity to get a full night sleep, although he wouldn't have minded the sex.


	9. Engagement Party

_**Chapter 9: **__The Engagement Party_

**31****st**** August 2003 **

Harry held Kael as he and Ginny wondered around the backyard. Harry saw many of his friends and acquaintances from Hogwarts.

After a little mingling he found out quite a lot about his old associates.

Terence Higgs, one of the few nice Slytherins who had been a fifth year seeker whilst Harry was in his first year, was married with a three-year-old son who ran around after him on the lawn a few metres away.

Harry found out from Jessa Tougin that Megan Jones and Theodore Nott who wore 'Potter Stinks' badges during Harry's fourth year were married happily and expecting their first daughter, although when Harry caught Theo looking Luna Lovegood up and down he got the sudden impression that the Slytherin was a bit of a perv.

Justin Finch-Fletchley, whom had been a Hufflepuff in Harry's year, had recently gotten in a bit of an argument with his muggle girlfriend who couldn't make it to the party as she was playing professional Hockey in New Zealand. He had told Harry (quite discreetly) that he was the architect for the new section of Gringotts.

Harry also met up with Dennis Creevy. It made him sad to remember Colin's limp body being carried into the Great Hall during the final battle. he had most defiantly changed. Dennis had finally grown into his sticky-outty ears and had also grown a fair bit taller.

Ginny re-joined the conversation as Dennis was telling Harry about two-year-old Macorbious, his oldest son out of his two children, and his latest habit of throwing his food all over the place at dinner.

"Ah-ha! Ginny, Harry you're here!" Lavender hugged both of them. Dennis opened his eyes wide with sarcasm as to say you're-screwed-now, and then he ran off to stop Macorbious from smothering the guests in cake.

"Hello Lavender," Ginny smiled.

"And this must be Kael, your…" Lavender pinched Kael's cheek as she spoke, leaving the two to finish the question.

"He's mine and Harry's son." Ginny smiled, taking the baby from Harry.

Harry eyed her as to ask 'are you ok?'

"Wow, he looks like you Harry." Lavender's expression then turned wary as she looked from Harry to Ginny.

"He has blonde hair…" She stated incredulously.

"Yes, he does. My aunt Petunia has blonde hair," Harry lied, remembering Petunia's wiry brown hair.

He knew very well from Remus and Sirius that both of his grandparents on his father's side had black hair and his grandfather and grandmother on his mother's side had brown and red hair. There was not a hint of blonde hair for generations on _either _side of his family.

"Oh, well…" Seamus made his way over towards them, a little girl in a horridly pink frilly dress in his arms. Lavender took her into her own arms.

"Harry, Ginny, this is my daughter Shesaris. She's turning two on the tenth of September. Seamus and I are arranging a birthday party for her next weekend; I'd love it if you could come!"

"Sure…" Harry could see Ginny's jaw clench, as though she was biting her tongue.

"Great!"

As Lavender was called over by Demelza Robins, a student from Gryffindor who had been in the year above Harry, Ginny let out a sigh.

* * *

Hermione weaved in and out of the crowd, trying not to knock people over with her stomach.

"Hullo Hermione." Hermione spun around to see Oliver Wood behind her, Samarian in his arms.

"Oh, hello Oliver." Oliver smiled weakly at Hermione.

"What's the matter?" She asked. The thing was, ever since the day Ron woke up and Hermione spilt coffee all over Oliver, she hadn't spoken to him. That had been over two weeks now.

"Oh, um… nothing. So, how have you been?" Oliver looked around the crowd, spotting Ron laughing and joking with Seamus, Neville, Dean, Parvati and Padma.

"Me, oh I've been fine, how about you?"

"Missing you," Oliver had no hesitation in saying.

"Oh, well. I'm sorry I haven't had time to catch up with you but it's just... Ron's awake now and we've been spending quite a bit of time together."

"Mione!" Samarian bounced up and down on Oliver's hip, reaching out his arms and opening and shutting his hands as if he was trying to grab hold of the air.

"Hello Samarian." Hermione smiled. She tickled the boy. She knew he wanted a hug but she just couldn't accept to hug him after she hadn't even bothered to try and meet up with Oliver since Ron had woken up.

"Oliver, what's wrong?" Hermione noticed the miserable look on Oliver's face.

"Here." Oliver grabbed hold of Hermione's hand and pulled her away from the music and the crowd.

Oliver put Samarian down as Shesaris ran up to him, and the two ran off, holding hands.

"Janelle's pregnant." Oliver seemed to suddenly find his shoes very interesting.

"What?"

"Janelle, she's pregnant with Malakai's child. They've only known each other six months! She sent me a letter saying that she wasn't going to fight for custody of Samarian. She spat out all of this nonsense about 'starting fresh' and me and her being a mistake. You can't just move to Hawaii and _forget _you have a child! She sent me the divorce paper's to sign."

At this stage tears were falling silently down Oliver's face.

Hermione seized him in a hug and he cried silently.

"It's alright. I'm sorry I haven't been there the past few weeks. I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you… It's ok. I'll help you look after Samarian. Just forget about Janelle, she wasn't good enough for you." Hermione would have continued but Oliver un-engulfed himself from her grip.

"Thank you Hermione, that means a lot to me."

Hermione opened her mouth to tell him it was no problem but a firework went off and all attention was turned to George who stood on a miniature stage at the front of the crowd.

"Friends, Family, and people who we picked up off of the street. I would like to make an announcement." Everyone turned towards the stage, some making their way closer to it.

"As you may already know, you have all been invited here today as I would like to announce my engagement. Now, you may be wondering who would be mad enough to agree to marry me."

"Give a warm round of applause to my ravishing fiancé Angelina Johnson, soon to be Angelina Weasley!" The crowd cheered and wolf whistled and when the speech was over, crowded around George and Angelina to congratulate them."

"Wow, I can't believe he's finally getting married," Ron laughed to Hermione.

"Don't be mean Ron." Hermione chortled, "You're not married yet either."

Ron turned to Hermione and grabbed her hand, kissing the diamond ring he had given her.

"Yes, but I will be soon." And with that Ron engulfed Hermione in a sweet, lingering kiss.


	10. Shesaris' Birthday BASH

_**Chapter 10: **__Shesaris' Birthday Bash_

8**th**** September 2003**

"Hermione, I hope we can meet up soon, I'm really missing your company and Sam won't stop babbling about you." Hermione looked over at Ron who sat on the couch and turned away.

"Yeah, maybe. I've just been so busy. With all my planning for the babies and then,"

"Ron?" Oliver injected, even through the phone she could hear the hint of bitterness in his voice."

"What's wrong?" Hermione took the phone into the kitchen, out of the earshot of Ron.

"Oh, nothing, sorry… you were saying?"

Hermione wanted to ask Oliver to tell her the truth, but she was afraid of the answer.

"I've just been busy… so will I see you at Shesaris' birthday this weekend?"

"Yeah, sure. Samarian no! Look, I have to go; Sam's gotten into the pots and pans." There was a clatter, the cry of Sam and then the phone clicked and was silent.

"Who was on the elerfone?" Ron asked Hermione, patting the seat next to him, indicating for her to sit down.

"Oh, just Oliver, just wondering if we're going to Shesaris's birthday…" Hermione seemed to drift off.

"Mione… are you ok?" Hermione shook her head.

"Oh, yeah. I just zoned out. Look, I think I'll go and lie down ok, I don't feel to great."

Ron watched Hermione leave. Why was it that every time she got off of the elerfone she was really spaced out?

Ron shook his head and turned back to the T.V.

* * *

**10****th**** September 2003**

Harry stood in the crowd and looked around.

Being mauled and surrounded for all those years you would think he would be used to the big crowds… but he still hated them.

"Harry, are you ok?" Ginny struggled past Megan and Theodore as she made her way towards Harry.

"Yeah, I'm fine… you?" Ginny smiled.

"Just worn out. I tell you what. All of these kids are sending me ballistic! Did you see Dennis's boy Macorbious pull the table cloth off of the table? All of the food went everywhere! Lavender went spastic!"

Ginny kissed Kael on the head and Harry laughed.

Ginny was right about the fact that there were children everywhere.

Macorbious, Ryan Higgs, Lisa Greengrass- Lloyd and Samantha Chang were running a muck in the spilt food. Dennis and a petite woman whom Harry guessed was his wife tried their hardest to scoop the two boys and two girls out of the mess.

Shesaris chased poor little Samarian with a fake wand that kept changing the colour of his hair.

Megan Jones- Nott was carrying her baby daughter Leslie and Harry had no idea where Theodore could be, but he hoped it did not include Luna Lovegood, whom he had caught Theo 'perving' at during the engagement party.

There were many more children running around whom Harry could not place to their parents, let alone their names.

"Wow, it sure is crowded here isn't it?" Harry pretty much shouted at Ginny.

"Mmmm." Ginny seemed more than a little less discouraged.

"C'mon, lets take Kael inside, I think he's getting hungry."

* * *

Ron and Hermione dug around the crowd, looking for Harry and Ginny.

"Where the bloody hell are they?" Ron asked angrily.

"Oh I don't know Ronald, look, I'll meet you inside, I have to…" Hermione trailed off towards the low garden bed wall in which Oliver sat on, Samarian on his knee, looking very distraught.

"What's wrong Samarian?" Hermione asked acknowledging Oliver with a slight smile.

"Shesh-Shesh poked me!" Samarian wailed, attempting Shesaris' name.

"Oh did she? Well she's not very nice is she?" Samarian shook his head.

He opened his arms and Hermione hugged the small boy.

"I wuv you." Samarian whispered.

Hermione's eyes shot open and she froze.

She re-gained her composure and slowly pulled away from the boy who Oliver held around the middle.

"He misses you Hermione."

Hermione sat in silence… she didn't know what to say.

She didn't have much of a chance to speak though. Oliver's lips had connected with hers and, again, her whole body froze, she couldn't move… so Oliver kissed her, and she sat frozen, and Ron stood behind them, his fists clenched.

"OI!" Ron made his way over to Oliver, pulled him up and punched him in the jaw as hard as he could.

Samarian fell from Oliver's lap and he hit the ground in an awkward position.

"Samarian!" Hermione got on her knees besides the crying boy.

Meanwhile Ron pulled Oliver onto his feet and punched him again.

"Don't move Hun." Hermione whispered to Samarian. She got up and run to Ron.

"Ron STOP!"

Ron, however, did not stop. He picked Oliver up again and punched him.

Hermione jumped to her feet.

"Stop!" She grabbed Ron's arm and before she knew it a sharp punch came to her face, knocking her well and truly off of her feet.

"HERMIONE!" Both Oliver and Ron rushed to her side.

"Daddy!" Oliver turned to see his son crying on the ground, a bone sticking awkwardly in his arm.

"Hermione? Hermione wake up!" Hermione slowly opened her eyes and raised her hand to her cheek.

"You hit me?"

Ron looked mortified.

"You told me you'd never hit me again."

"Hermione! No, it was an accident! I didn't mean to I just…"

"WHAT is going on here?!" Lavender shrieked. "This is a children's birthday party!" Only then did Hermione realise that half of the guests were staring at her and Ron, and the other half Oliver.

"Get out! RON! OLIVER! GET OUT!" Oliver lifted Samarian carefully.

Ron tried to help Hermione up but she shrugged him off.

"Oliver, he needs to get looked at, c'mon we'll take him to Saint Mungo's."

"Hermione!" Hermione did not look back at Ron's pleas. She just continued on walking.

Ron stood in the noise; his head booming and his heart breaking and blood across his knuckles.


	11. Going Home

_**Chapter 11: **__Living With Oliver_

7**th**** September 2003**

"He's asleep."

Hermione smiled up at Oliver who stood above her.

She sighed and looked around the living room. There were a pile of plates and bottles on the sink, a pile of clothes (un-folded) in a basket in a corner. Pictures spread across the mantle place. Pictures of Oliver and Janelle dominated the rest of the photos. There were pictures of their wedding and pictures of them on some beach. It could be Hawaii or Costa Rica. There were pictures of Janelle pregnant and one of her in the hospital, holding baby Samarian. There is one of her holding Samarian; who looks about eight months, by the hands as he stands up. Then she seises to exist. The next photos only consist of Oliver and Samarian, Janelle is no-where to be seen.

Hermione takes extra interest in the picture of her and Oliver on the beach. She studies Janelle. She is beautiful. She has long, straight blonde hair and flawless skin. She is in a bikini and her body cures perfectly in every way. Hermione can see how Oliver fell in love with her.

She then notices something a little less perfect.

Janelle is missing a wedding ring, and an engagement ring.

Hermione sighs; they must be in Hawaii.

Maybe Oliver and Janelle's marriage was condemned from the start.

"Are you ok Hermione?"

Hermione looks up at Oliver's bruised face.

She had been staying at Oliver's the past two nights and had no-idea when to go back home.

She was pregnant… WITH TWINS! She couldn't stay forever.

It just didn't feel right. Ron was her babies' father. She had to forgive him sometime.

* * *

**30****th**** September 2003**

Ginny stared down at Kael.

He was having his afternoon nap.

She could not believe he was getting so old.

He had two new teeth and could say mumumumumum.

Something in which Ginny took great pride in.

She stood over him for as little while later until she felt suddenly sick.

She ran to the bathroom just in time to throw up her breakfast.

_Lucky I didn't have lunch._ She thought to herself as she whipped off her mouth.

She sat back and thought about the recent events.

Hermione still hadn't come home after two months.

Ron was moping around the house all day.

Convinced that she and Oliver had eloped and Oliver was going to father his children.

"She'll never come back to me!" Ron whined over his seventh fire whisky.

"Sure she will, Ron." Harry tried to shush Ron. Kael had only just gotten to sleep.

"No she won't! She's run off with Oliver! I don't even know where she is!"

Harry could say no more. He just sat and listened to his friend. It's all he could do.

Ginny sat on the bathroom floor.

"Ginny?"

"Oh, Harry. You scared me."

"Why are you on the floor?"

"I just sat down for a second."

"Are you ok?"

"I don't know."

Ginny had been throwing up for two weeks. What was wrong with her?

"Ginny, I think we should see a healer."

Ginny nodded and Harry helped her off of the floor.

* * *

**1****st**** October 2003**

This was it.

She had to tell him.

She couldn't stay.

She didn't even know why she was still here.

She missed Ron terribly, and she could tell that Oliver was hoping that feelings would form between the two.

But the truth was, Ron was the only guy for her…

She hated the way he was so stubborn and jealous _all_ the time.

But she loved it.

She hated the way they would fight over the stupidest things.

But she loved that he would cook her dinner to say: "I'm sorry."

She hated the way he was so quick tempered.

But loved that the colour of his ears gave away his emotions so easily.

She hated that she needed him so much.

But yet, she loved it.

"Oliver?"

Oliver sat up straight.

"Yes?"

She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.

She could tell he wouldn't like what was coming.

"I've decided to leave…"

He jumped up faster than a bludger being swung at.

"What? Why?"

"Oliver," she jumped it, "I can't stay! I'm six months pregnant! I need to go back home! I can't stay. I love Ron, Oliver. I'm sorry… But I do."

Oliver looked sad, then angry, then sad.

"Just go." He whispered.

Hermione walked silently into Samarian's room.

She lent down and kissed him on the head.

"Good bye Samarian." She whispered.

"He'll miss you, you know?" Oliver leant against the door frame.

"I know."

Hermione turned around, tears spilling down her face.

"I know." She whispered again.

"Hey, hey. Don't cry… You'll see him again."

Oliver reached out to hug her but she pushed gently, but firmly against his chest, shaking her head.

"No, I can't Oliver. I can't. It will just ruin things. I can't see you again. And I can't see Samarian again." She shook her head and looked down at the sleeping boy.

"He'll be alright." She told herself aloud.

"He has you." She kissed him again and turned back to Oliver.

"Goodbye Oliver."

And she left.

* * *

**1****st**** September 2003**

Ginny leapt into Harry's arms.

"We're going to have a baby!" She shouted.

Harry spun her around and hugged her.

They were going to have a baby. A baby… imagine that.

Kael was going to have a brother or sister. How fantastic…

Ron pulled open the door to see Hermione standing there, tears running down her face.

"I'm so sorry!" She wept. She was a lot bigger now.

"I'm so, so sorry! I don't know what I was thinking! I love you Ron!"

Ron stepped forward and took her into his arms.

"I love you Hermione, so much."


	12. Tradgeties

_**Chapter 12: **__Perfect and Precious_

**May 2****nd**** 2004**

"Push Hermione!"

"I don't want to!"

"Please, you're nearly there!"

It was a slippery room.

That was the first thing she recalled.

Everything seemed slippery. The bed sheets where slippery under her back. Ron's hands where slippery in hers, her head was slippery of sweat and she had a bloody big pain 'down there'.

"C'mon Hermione!"

She pushed as hard as she could. She looked down to see a shaped of gunk. It let out an ear-piercing scream so it didn't take Hermione long to realize it was her baby.

"It's a girl!" The healer shouted. Bu

Hermione smiled up at Ron and he smiled back at her.

She looked around at Harry and Ginny. Harry was smiling and looking at Ron and Ginny had a queasy look on her face. It was only six months until she was due and she looked at the baby and then where it had come with great fret. Hermione caught her eye and smiled. Ginny smiled but she still didn't look too sure.

"Ok Hermione, now again…"

"What?"

"C'mon Hermione, it'll be easier this time." Ron whispered.

"Well how about _you_ push it out then!" Hermione hissed.

Ron swallowed and Hermione began to push.

"Push!"

Hermione let out a screech and there was a great release, it was over.

She looked down at the baby to find it rather blue underneath all of the gunk.

The healer took the baby.

"He's not breathing…" She called urgently.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked, looking at the baby.

The took the baby and laid it down. Nurses surrounded them, Hermione could not see.

"What's wrong?" Hermione cried; hoping more than anything to hear her baby boy scream.

She made to get up but Ron held her shoulders.

"What's wrong with our baby? Ron, what's wrong with him?" Ron had a look of distress on his face but he did not speak, he dare not take his eyes off of his son.

The baby was rushed out of the room, leaving only one healer.

"What's wrong with him?!" Hermione screamed.

"He's not breathing. We're doing all we can." And then the healer left.

Hermione cried into Ron's shoulder.

"Shhh." He soothed her.

* * *

**May 6****th**** 2004**

Harry held open the door and Ron and Ginny came bustling inside. Hermione followed a little slower. She walked down the hall to her room and sat down nursing her child as it slept.

No-one said anything to her. They asked her if she was hungry or needed anything but after that she was alone.

She lied down and let her daughter sleep on her chest. They breathed in sync.

She shut her eyes and soon she found herself back in the hospital room. She held the baby close to her and tears streamed down her face. He was still warm. His face still and relaxed.

How could he have not made it?

She sobbed, cried, bawled, wailed for her lost child.

"He needs a name."

Ron did not protest.

"What should we call him?"

"Arte." _(Pronounced ART-EE)_

"Arte?"

"It means Perfect. Because that's what he is."

Hermione remembered Ron taking Arte out of her arms.

"He's ok Hermione. He'll be ok."

She didn't hold her daughter until the next day.

It had been her fault. She had been getting all of the nutrition; Arte's lungs weren't fully developed by the time Hermione went into labor.

"Do you want to hold her?" Ron asked.

"No." Hermione didn't want to hold her. If she hadn't have been so greedy Arte would have lived.

"Why not?" Ron asked.

Hermione rolled over.

"I'm tired."

He tried again in the afternoon.

"Hermione she needs to be fed."

"Well I bottled some milk earlier, she can have that."

Ron looked down at Hermione, sitting in the bed.

"Hermione, what's wrong? Why won't you hold her?"

Hermione sighed.

"Don't you see Ronald? She is the reason you don't have a son! If she hadn't have been so greedy Arte would have lived!"

Ron put the baby girl in her plastic crib.

"Hermione that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! That is not true! Our daughter had no choice! She did not control how much food and stuff, she was getting! How could she? She's only a baby! She didn't purposely do it! Arte is gone Hermione, and blaming his sister won't bring him back! Now hold your daughter! Feed her, cuddle her. She's so small Hermione. Without love she'll die… Just love her, ok?" Ron picked the girl up out of the crib and handed her to Hermione.

She looked stubborn and refused to look down at her baby.

"She's so small Hermione; so precious. Please…" Hermione looked down at her and saw that she had her very same eyes.

She looked just like Arte except with less hair.

"She's so precious." Ron repeated.

A rush of emotions over took Hermione. She was ashamed for thinking something as pure as her baby girl could have been the cause of Arte's death. The most overwhelming feeling was love. Love for this little girl with wide brown eyes and red hair.

"She's so beautiful." Hermione didn't know why, but she found herself crying.

Ron hugged her, their baby in between them, she was their daughter and Hermione wanted nothing to ever hurt her.

"What should we call her?" Hermione asked Ron, the tears began to dry from her face and make her cheeks itch.

Ron waited for a second, searching all chemises of his mind.

"April." He smiled.

Hermione smiled and looked down at the baby girl. "We have to keep her safe Ron… because she is so precious…"

Hermione wrapped her arms around her little girl. She wondered out into the lounge room and a note was stuck to the door.

"_Went out to get some dinner, we'll be home soon." _

Hermione held April in her arms. She held her tightly.

"I love you April. I want you to be happy. It's what you deserve."

Hermione made her way back to her room and laid April down in her crib, kissing her on the head.

* * *

**May 7****th**** 2004**

Hermione yawned as she sat up in her bed. Ron was not beside her and when she got up she realized April was not in her crib.

She found Ron on the sofa, April in his arms.

"I didn't hear her wake up." Hermione asked, making Ron jump. It wasn't until then that she realized he was crying.

"What's the matter?" She asked, moving slowly towards him.

"Don't Hermione. Please, you can't… It wasn't your fault. Sometimes it just happens. But she's safe now. She's with Arte."

"What are you talking about? What's wrong with April?"

Ron sucked in a sob.

"She's dead Hermione. I woke up and she wasn't breathing. I did all I could Hermione. There was nothing I could do."

And all of a sudden everything was spinning and then it was dark.


	13. Letting Go

_**Chapter 13**_: _Letting Go_

**May 7th 2004**

Hermione held her baby girl in her arms… How could this happen? She'd already lost Arte, now April… Why?

Ron sat beside her sobbing into his hands.

"I'm going to take April for a walk." Ron looked up at her in disbelief.

"Hermione, she's..."

Hermione smiled weakly. She could not feel. It was as though she was outside of her body, watching in.

"I know Ron, I know. I just want to show her what she never got to see."

She wrapped April warmly, as though the baby might catch a cold if she didn't. She threw her long coat over her track pants and t-shirt and slid her shoes on her feet

"I'll be back, Ron. I just need some time with her."

She slowly walked out of the apartment and when she was gone the only thing Ron could do to make himself feel better was to over-turn the coffee table. But even as the vase smashed and the magazines scattered across the floor he didn't feel any better.

* * *

"See that April? That is the sky. It is so blue today. I wish you could see it." 

Hermione walked further. People all around her smiled as though to say 'congratulations' on her baby.

"And those?" she pointed out, walking into a small park. "Those are trees. And the lake is over there. The ducks will come back soon. They went away for the winter. They flew south. _Quack, Quack. _Ducks say _Quack _April"

Hermione walked her daughter down the quiet London street. Businesses began opening their doors to the world as she passed. She made her way past a dress shop, holding April close to her as the wind blew a bitter gust at them.

"We could have gotten your formal dress from there April. That's where I was going to get my wedding dress from. Hogwarts holds a ball every four years. They hold it on the same years as an event that the Muggle's call 'The Olympics.' You'd be in your first and then fourth years when they happen. Your fourth year one would have been so wonderful." Hermione didn't realize the tears streaming down her face until she caught sight of her reflection.

"Look at me April… there is so much I have to teach you… How will I cope without you?"

* * *

By the time nine-thirty Ron was stressed out and worried about Hermione's whereabouts. 

"Why did I let her go?" He asked himself out loud, frustrated pulling at his mattered hair.

"Let who go where?" Harry held the door open for Ginny, her stomach arrived half a second before the rest of her.

They had left to drop Kael at Mr. and Misses Weasley's house before Ron had even woken.

"Hermione, she went out with April at eight-thirty and she still isn't back! I don't know what's happened to her!" Ron frantically walked up and down, pulling at his hair.

"Ron, it's only been an hour." Ginny leaned against the couch, taking some weight off of her feet, wondering if her brother had finally gone crazy.

"April's gone Ginny. I woke up early and decided to take her into the lounge so Hermione could get some sleep, only she wasn't breathing. I did all I could, but she wouldn't breath. Sudden infant death syndrome, I think they call it… Hermione woke up and I told her. She just looked at me, as though I was lying. She kept saying something about taking her for a walk and showing her what she would never get to see… but she's still not back."

Ginny just about fell off of the back of the couch, "April died?"

Ron nodded gravely, pushing away the tears with suck intensity Harry was sure he'd wipe his face away with them.

"Do you know where she might be?" Ginny asked, suddenly feeling an anxiety attack coming on. What would she do if the same happened to her baby boy?"

"I don't know, Gin. Before Arte and April were born she told me she wanted to plant two trees at that park we went to on the first day of spring. She was fascinated with planting these trees and watching how they grew. So that when Arte and April were older she could show them the tree she planted on the day they were born."

* * *

Hermione knelt down and dug a small hole in the dirt with her fingers. She placed the tiny seed in the hole and covered it over. She did the same thing thirty centimeters to the left. 

"These trees will grow for you and your brother April. They'll grow big and strong and reach the sky, so that one day you can both climb down them; back to me."

Hermione stood and took April over to the lake. She placed her fingers in it. It was frosty, but not quite cold enough for frost bite, not on her fingers anyway. She brought her fingers up and let a few drops of water fall onto April's head. They slid down into the cremises of her eye and then slid down and absorbed into the blanket at her chin.

"The waters cold April; too cold to swim in. We can go in together." Hermione took of her shoes and slid into the water, holding April firmly to her chest.

"Shhh." Hermione soothed. "It's ok, Mummy's here. I'll always be here."

And then she gave up fighting, and let herself go.


	14. The Funeral

_**Chapter 14: **__The Funeral_

**May 7****th**** 2004**

Ginny was the first one in the water, but it was only a second before Harry pulled her screaming body out.

"Let me go Harry! She's in there; I know it! They're her shoes; I got them for her at Christmas! Let me _go!_" Harry, however, did not let go.

"It's too cold Ginny, it's too cold. I won't lose you and the baby!" Harry held Ginny close to him as she stopped pounding on his chest and began to sob.

Ron was in the frosty lake before Ginny was completely out of it. The impact of hitting the lake's surface, mixed with the icy water made his stomach cramp instantly. He didn't want to open his eyes, but he would never find Hermione if he didn't.

He saw her immediately. It didn't take him long to pull her freezing body out the water and onto the bank. April was still in her arms, her face as blue as Hermione's shoes.

"Hermione!" Ginny shouted as she flung herself away from Harry.

Ron coughed out water and then checked Hermione's pulse.

Harry looked down at Hermione's face in shock. It was as blue as April's.

"She's not breathing!" Ginny screamed frantically.

"Her pulse is weak, but its there." Ron began the CPR, thanking his mother in his head for making him take the classes.

"C'mon Hermione, breath…" Ron whispered. Ginny gathered April in her arms. The baby's skin was no-longer as blue.

"Why couldn't you have lived?" Ginny whispered into the baby's face.

"Breath…" Ron whispered between breaths.

Just as Harry was about to lose his last strands of hope a tremendous cough came from Hermione and she spat water onto the grass, coughing and spluttering.

"Hermione!" Ginny rushed to Hermione and wrapped her arms around her neck. Then she let go and began to yell as Hermione continued to cough. "You're stupid you know that?! What the _hell _were you doing?! You almost died!" Harry pulled Ginny away from Hermione as she finished coughing.

"Come on Ginny, let's get you dried up. Ron will let us know what happens."

Ginny handed April to Ron and as Harry carted Ginny away she shouted something along the lines of: "I'm not a child Harry! I don't need to be carted away every time something happens," but she was carted away none the less.

"Hermione…" Hermione curled up in a ball and Ron conjured up a blanket. "Lets go…"

* * *

**May 8****th**** 2004**

Hermione was discharged from the hospital the next day. Everything concerning April had been cleared up and the hospital agreed to take the babies to the funeral palar for the funeral that would be in two days time. Hermione told the healer about April dieing suddenly in her sleep and about her taking her for a walk. She said that she slipped off her shoes to feel how cold the water was and fell in. The healer was sceptical but had no reason to think otherwise.

Hermione went straight to her room when she got home. Ron checked on her a few times dozen times but there was nothing he could do.

"I feel useless Harry. She's so sad. What am I going to do?"

Harry just shook his head. He saw Hermione curl up and lie on the grass after she'd been pulled out of the lake. It was as though the light had gone out of her eyes. Like she was just a shell, though she was lost so far down in herself that no-one could reach in and pull her out.

Ginny lay on the couch, between sleep and consciousness. Not quite sure weather she wanted to wake or not. She could hear Ron's silent whimpers from the kitchen. She lay in wonder, questioning what it was she thought Hermione had been doing. But she was sure, as much as it scared her, that she knew. Hermione no-longer felt fit to live in this world… and it scared Ginny more than the thought of someone being in her head, telling her what to do.

Ginny rose off of the couch and made her way into Hermione's room. She sat on the side of Hermione's bed. Hermione slept so soundly that Ginny had to check if she was breathing or not.

_Please come back Hermione. Come back to us…

* * *

_

**May 11****th**** 2004**

It was a nice day. The birds sung their own little songs and the sky was bare of imperfections. The dew was melting on the grass, the sun was slowly peeking over the vague hills on the horizon and the people that Hermione drove past seemed to walk with an anomalous amount of spring in their steps, as if to praise the day for being so lovely.

Hermione wanted to destroy the birds for not singing morbid tunes. She wanted to tear down the sky for being so blue. She wanted to paint the grass black and fill the people's shoes with bricks, so that they could not be lifted from the ground. She wanted to scream at the world for being happy. She wanted to yell at the people for smiling and being content. But what she really wanted was for the world around her to freeze and wither like her world had when she realised that April, like Arte, was gone.

"My babies are dead! Why are you so radiant and beautiful?!" she wanted to scream, but the Earth would not answer, and she knew it, so she just continued on, praising the shadowy hills for being the only things to show sorrow for her pain.

Ron pulled the car to a halt at the gates of the cemetery. It was a peaceful place. Grass surrounded the headstones and the flowers around the graves were fresh. Hermione got out of the passenger seat, her face as blank as it was the day Ron had pulled her out of the icy depths of the lake.

All around the coffin stood friends, family, work colleagues and old school classmates. There were so many familiar faces but Hermione was calmed a little to know that her tragedies had affected the world of others. None of the faces she walked towards were happy or smiling. None of the bodies she slowly headed towards were dressed cheerfully. The ones that did move around to whisper among themselves did not move with any sort of spring or bounce.

Hermione looked down at her babies. They were dressed in the identical suits that her parents had brought before they were born. One was blue, the other pink. They hugged into each other, loose fists touching, as though they were sleeping.

"They're so beautiful." Mrs. Weasley sobbed silently to Mr. Weasley. "So perfect and precious."

Hermione touched the hands of her children, kissed each on the head, and then she did what no mother should ever have to do…

She let them go.


	15. Finding Hope

_**Chapter 15: **__Finding Hope_

**April 21****st**** 2005**

"It's my birthday! It's my birthday!" Teddy ran through the door shouting as Andromeda stepped inside.

"Settle down, Teddy." Teddy, however, did not listen.

"It's my birthday!" he yelled until everyone was congregated in the lounge room.

"So, how old are you now?" George asked with a chuckle, "five?"

"As if! I'm seven!"

Teddy pulled George away to a bag that contained all of his toys and everyone made themselves comfortable on the couches. Hermione sat next to Ron and he took her hand, giving it a little squeeze.

It had been nearly a year now. Hermione didn't cope too well with the first months. She was an empty shell for a long time. No-one could get her out. She slept a lot and when she wasn't sleeping she was wondering around with an aimless look on her face.

**_October 17__th__ 2004_**

"_I can't do it anymore," Ginny told Harry one night, four months after the funeral. "She's my best friend, but she's not Hermione anymore. I think we should take her to Saint Mungos."_

"_Ginny," Harry tried to sound calm but he was afraid, he didn't want the real Hermione to slip from his mind, but he was forgetting. Forgetting the assertive way she told facts. Forgetting the way she told him to 'stop being ridiculous!' He was forgetting her smile and her laugh and any other expression she used to show. He was forgetting the real Hermione and in her place was this crone. "She isn't crazy. She's just mourning." _

"_Well I can't handle it Harry! I'm due in two months," she told him, "I think we should move. Maybe we can go and live somewhere else for a little while?" What could he do? She was right._

_Ron stayed with Hermione but things just seemed so much harder. It had been a hard decision to leave her. But she wasn't the woman he'd fallen inlove with. She was some one completely different. He'd cried whilst watching her sleep that night. He wondered if she was herself when she dreamt. She was more herself to him whilst she was asleep than she was whilst she was awake. He stroked her hair and willed her to come back to him. Even when she lay, between consciousness and sleep, he stroked her hair and whispered to her, but she lay still, her eyes shut, wishing she could find the thing to bring her back. _

_She'd seen councillors and GP's and Psychiatrists and Nutritionalists. But no medication they told her to take made her happier, no exercises she did made her anymore energetic, no food she ate made her feel healthier, no scene she thought about made her more cheerful. Nothing worked. She did dream though. _

_Her worst one yet had little to do with either Arte or April. She'd been walking and everything suddenly felt cold, but that's all she felt; the cold on her skin. She looked up and hundreds of Dementors circled above her, but none even so much as touched her. There was no happiness to suck out, no soul to kiss…_

_It was a worse day than most. Just a 'down day' as Ron called it. He said it as though she had 'up days'. _

_He had been packing his bags whilst she slept. They had not had a real conversation in months and Ron could not handle the neglect anymore. She looked right through him. As he took his spare quilt out of the top cupboard a doll dropped out. It was old looking but it was pretty. It had chestnut curls and a pink dress. _

_Ron put the doll on Hermione's chest and zipped up his suitcase. She stirred as he kissed her on the head._

"_I'm so sorry Hermione. I'm so sorry." He turned, grabbed his suitcase off of the floor, and made his way out of the room._

_When he got to the door he turned around, for one final look, and saw Hermione was sitting up, the doll in her outstretched arms._

"_Hermione?" She had a look on her face, one of confusion and wonder and amazement and… well, emotion._

_And then she did something that made Ron drop his suitcase in surprise._

_Hermione began to cry. But not just silent crying… She laughed and cried and tears ran down her face. She looked so beautiful that if Ron hadn't have been frozen with surprise he would have run over to her and ravished her with kisses. As Hermione looked up at Ron he saw that her face was twisted into an expression that seemed to want to show every emotion she'd missed over the past months._

"_Ronae." _

"_What did you call me?" Ron took a few steps closer to Hermione, his suitcase still at the door._

"_No. I said Ronae, not Ron. This is her doll." _

"_Why was it in the cupboard?" Ron could hardly form words. Hermione was talking. Words other than 'Yes' and 'No'. Proper sentences. _

"_She left it at the hospital."_

"_Hospital?"_

"_When you were in the hospital two years ago, in August, there was a girl; Ronae, She was hit by a car whilst crossing the road. She was pronounced brain dead but her family refused to turn off the machine. A week later she came out of her coma. Her brain was fully functional. Her mother helped me keep hope, because I'll tell you something Ron; I was ready to give up. She helped me. When they were gone I found Ronae's doll under her bed. And I kept it with me everyday until you woke up. It gave me hope." Tears fell slowly down Ron's cheeks. Not so much for the little doll that gave Hermione hope but more for the fact that Hermione was awake. Mentally awake. _

_"I'm so sorry Ron. I've been so buried in everything it was like I just couldn't grasp onto anything. Everything was slipping away. It was like trying to grasp onto water with your hands. I'm so sorry Ron." Ron could not speak. Hermione was back. Everything would be OK._

Ginny and Harry rushed through the front doors. Baby James in Ginny's arms and Kael on Harry's back.

"Sorry we're late everyone. Kael decided that he'd go and play in the mud so we had to re-bath him."

Kael just shook his head as to say: "no! It's not true."

Harry and Ginny sat on the sofas with everyone else.

"So this is little James?" Penelope, Percy's wife, scooted closer to Ginny, the two year old on her lap indicated to three-month-old James on Ginny's lap.

"Baby." Her son whispered, pointing at James as he slept.

"Yes Josef, that's baby James."

"Shhh!" Josef put his hands over his mouth as he shushed at the sleeping baby.

Penelope and Ginny exchanged a small smile and Penelope took Josef to where her five-year-old, Paige, was being shown toys by Teddy.

Mrs. Weasley herded everyone out into the sunshine of the backyard where Teddy unwrapped the remainder of his gifts.

Four year old Macorbious Creevy and Ranessa Jordan played in the wrapping paper and Samantha Chang and Alicia Spinnet's daughter MacKenzie Farlow played together in the sandpit.

Shesaris, Zachoni Creevy and Jared Thomas played with a few toys whilst their parents mingled near by and every other child there was either with their parents or over with Teddy and his present show with George.

The place had such a good vibe to it and Harry was glad he had such a great family.


	16. The Wedding

_**Chapter 16: **__The Wedding_

**April 27****th ****2005**

She looked so beautiful in the dress. The look on her face was not of unconditional confidence, but there was so much love in her chocolate eyes.

He looked around and everyone there was astounded at how beautiful she was in her white dress.

Victoire and Paige held hands and threw white and red rose petals into the air. They drifted back down to land on the strip of carpet. The two Weasley girls looked so adorable in their little pale green dresses.

Hermione descended the isle, Gregory at her arm. There was defiantly no doubt in her smile as she reached the top of the carpet.

"Wow…Mione looks so beautiful!" Victoire was hushed as her whisper rung around the silent yard.

"We are gathered here to join these two people in holy matrimony." The justice of the peace began.

"Now, I believe that you two have written your own vows? Hermione, you may begin."

Hermione took a deep breath and began. "Ron. I remember the first time I saw you. It was on the train to Hogwarts in our first year. You had dirt on your nose and we were so very young. As the years wore on we became friends. Through out bitter fights and jealous rages we managed to stay together. Be that by our own free will or Harry's exhaustion at hearing us argue... or maybe it was because there was always an assignment you needed help with." A delicate amount of laughter came from the crowd.

"I don't know who realised that we were meant to be together first, but I can not explain the happiness it brought me. I would give up anything for you Ron Weasley. Be it my heart or my soul or even my books…" another small jitter of laughter.

"I love you Ron. I always have, and I always will."

There were a few seconds silence before Ron started his vows.

"Hermione. You are beautiful… in every way. I have loved you since before I can remember. I love everything about you. I love the way you call me Ronald when you are mad or when I am wrong about something. I'm sure everyonecan guess that that means I'm called Ronald _a lot,_" The crowd laughed again.

"I love the way you know exactly how to get me to take notice of things. I love the way you get to me through my stomach and the way you make Sunday morning pancakes. I love the way you make me feel and the things you do to me. I love the way you make me feel so much more important than every other guy on Earth. I love you Hermione Granger, and that isn't going to change."

Everyone stood in silence for a few seconds until the Justice of Peace spoke.

"I now ask the ring barer to come forward to present the rings."

Everyone looked towards the end of the isle to where Teddy walked towards the top of the carpet. He was wearing a suit and his hair slowly turned a shade of pink as everyone looked at him with delightful expressions. He had something cuffed in his hands and it wasn't until he uncovered them that Hermione and Ron saw a fluffy baby Fawkes, the rings in his small beak.

Ron held out his hand and Fawkes placed the rings in his hand. He sung a small melody before placing his head under his wing and falling asleep.

Teddy carried the baby bird back down the isle.

Hermione looked at Ron, beaming.

"Mr. Weasley if you would repeat after me," the Justice of peace began.

"Hermione Granger, I give you this ring as a token of my love."

"Hermione Granger, I give you this ring as a token of my love."

"With this ring I promise to stay by your side in sickness or health."

"With this ring I promise to stay by your side in sickness or health."

"I promise to love you and stand by your side forever and ever."

"I promise to love you and stand by your side forever and ever."

Hermione repeated the vows and then the Justice of Peace said the words Ron had been craving him to say since he proposed to Hermione.

"I now pronounce you man and wife. Ron, you may kiss your bride."

No more had to be said. The crowd cheered and Ron kissed Hermione.

* * *

**May 2****nd**** 2005**

Hermione sat on her own in the vacant apartment. Ron had gone over to Harry's to get Kael and James as he and Ginny were going out for dinner.

Hermione was overwhelmed with emotion as she thought about what was in front of her. She didn't know what to do. She wasn't ready. It had been exactly a year; a year from today. How could she handle going through it again? In another five to ten years maybe but the wound was still fresh. Her stretch marks were still fresh. She'd only recently lost that last but of weight she'd put on during the painful process, so that she looked nice in her wedding dress. She had no doubt that Ron was what she wanted, but this? It was so soon.

"C'mon boys, inside now." Ron carried James and held Kael's hand. Teddy ran in and hugged Hermione.

"Sorry Mione. Teddy was at Harry's and Andromeda had a yoga class she forgot about. Ginny said she'd send an owl letting her know where Teddy was. I hope you don't mind that he stays. They've all had dinner." Ron hung up his coat and lay James in the bouncer that had been in his other hand. Kael sat with Teddy, fascinated by the toy car he had.

"Mione?" Hermione sat still, staring out at nothing. "Hermione?"

Hermione turned with a jerk, "huh?"

"Are you ok Hermione?" Ron sat next to Hermione and took her hand.

Hermione stared down at the pregnancy test. Ron followed her gaze and instantly squeezed her hand.

"Does the blue line mean…" Ron trailed of as Hermione nodded.

"Hermione! That's wonderful!" Ron jumped up and pulled her into a hug. He kissed her full on the lips but she only smiled faintly. She sat back down when Ron let go of her.

"Hermione, this is great news. What's wrong?"

Hermione looked up at Ron with her big chocolate eyes.

"Don't you think it's a bit soon Ron? It's only been a year."

"Hermione, it's been a year… I think its time we put it behind us."

"What do you propose I do Ronald? Forget about them?"

"Hermione, I'd never ask you to forget about April and Arte. They were my children too. You're not the only one who had has had to go through this. All I'm saying is that you have to move on. We'll never forget them, but we have to move on with our lives." Hermione was surprised to find herself crying.

"I think about them every day Ron…"

"I know Hermione," Ron pulled his wife into a hug. "So do I."


	17. Teddy in Trouble

**Sorry about the delay guys... Ok this chapter has skipped ahead but not by much... Kael is three-years-old, James is nearly one and Ginny is pregnant with Albus. Hermione is pregnant and Teddy Lupin is eight, Victoire is seven. Hope this isn't too confusing! Please, I know it is un eventful and everything, but stay with me... BIG shocker in the next chapter!! Sarah xx**

* * *

_**Chapter 17:** Teddy in Trouble_

**December 3rd 2006**

Every morning Hermione awoke with an uneasy feeling of concern anxiety. She was afraid that something would happen to her unborn child. She had, despite it being the most un-Hermione-ish thing, become quite superstitious. She avoided things she found were believed to be bad during pregnancy such as lying on her stomach (even in the early months), she began drinking excessive amounts of green leaf tea and (to Ron's utter dismay) did not have sex.

She had also covered nearly every surface of their new house with baby books. The kitchen table, bench tops, coffee table, bedside tables, phone stand and even the television all supported one or more, creamy coloured baby books.

Hermione followed every one of their eating, sleeping, exercising and positive thinking plans. She did not eat sushi, had her meat well-done when they ate out, cut out eating Caesar dressing, mayonnaise, eggnog, fish, and nearly almost every type of cheese. She stoped eating artificial sugars, and made sure that any possible bacterium was steamed out of the vegetables she ate.

Ron learnt early not to criticize Hermione's change in lifestyle. When she had been only four months pregnant (October) she had stormed through the door, Ginny behind her with a pile of groceries in hand, and had began to pull out nearly every product containing eggs in their cupboards and fridge.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" Ron had asked as Ginny dumped the groceries onto the table.

"Oh Merlin! Ron, did you know that Salmonella is found in lots of products that have raw egg in it? I had a ham and mayonnaise sandwich yesterday, Ron! The mayonnaise could have been contaminated! We have to get rid of the Caesar dressing. The eggnog too…" Hermione rushed around the kitchen, tossing the coleslaw dressing in the bin as she passed it. She rushed around, waving her arms whilst referring to her midwife.

"Hermione, settle down. There'll be nothing left _to_ eat if you come home every second day and throw out ten things because you read that they contain a product that is bad for the baby." Hermione continued to pull egg associated foods out of the cupboard and throw them in the trash.

"Yeah Hermione, when I was pregnant with James I ate cheese all of the time and he's ok. Even with this baby I don't have very strong eating restrictions. I'm six months pregnant with him and I've done the tests, He's all right. Pregnancy is an experience, not a test." Ginny's next pregnancy had come only two months after James was born. It always came up in conversation with a lot of winking and nudging when Ron and Harry had had one too many drinks.

"I have to be careful Ron. The healers told me after my operation in 2002 that pregnancy would have to be taken with caution. I've already lost three babies Ron; I don't think I'll ever be able to try again if this one doesn't make it." Ron had suddenly gone quiet. He knew that the first child's death had been because of him; Arte's death could be blamed on him too. If he hadn't of smashed that bowl that shot glass into Hermione's stomach she wouldn't have had a problem with the pregnancy… He wished every day that they could have picked up the problem with Arte earlier; then maybe he would still be alive…

Ron sunk into the couch, beginning to feel depressed.

A pair of tanned arms slid over his shoulders and locked together across his chest. A kiss graced his cheek.

"I'm sorry Ron, I'm just afraid…" Ron turned around and kissed Hermione on the head.

"I know you are. If we lose this baby I don't know what I'll do. It's all my fault that you've lost our other children-"

"Don't say that Ron! It's not your fault ok? You have to stop blaming yourself."

Ron sighed. "I just think it would be so much easier if April and Arte were here."

"I know Ron, so do I." Then Hermione had kissed Ron on the top of the head.

* * *

"How are you this morning?" Hermione stretched as she entered the lounge room, at seven months pregnant she was definitely getting big.

"Where did you go last night Ron?" The night before the phone had rung and Ron had bolted out of the house yelling something that Hermione could only un-jumble in her sleepy state as: "Mini saving maybe, got to go to paint the Congos," but obviously that wasn't it.

"Ginny called me last night at three in the morning saying she was having her baby and seeing as Harry's accompanying the minister to America to meet with that Muggle leader, she called me."

"Is she ok?" Hermione shouted from the kitchen where wafts of green herbal tea drifted into the lounge room.

"Yeah; false alarm. I thought she was going to have the baby in the car! I had to get Kael and James up. Kael insisted on putting his shoes on before we left, only he couldn't do up the laces. He dropped one off of his foot as I carried him to the car and he wouldn't let me leave without it! James screamed the whole time, obviously startled at having to be woken. Then Kael began to cry in the car cause Ginny was sitting there clenching in pain and wouldn't answer his question of: "Where are we going?" and because Kael was crying and Ginny was half grunting half screaming and I'm telling her to breath and Kael that she's ok, James starts to cry again… It was a hectic night." Hermione came back into the lounge room, laughing softly.

"Well it definitely sounded like you had fun. Poor Ginny."

"Poor Ginny?! I'm the one who had to shush James and tell Kael to hurry up and try and soothe Ginny. All whilst trying to drive!"

Hermione laughed, "ok, I'm sorry. You poor thing, you had it so much harder than your sister, who might I add, nearly pushed a baseball sized head out of her-"

"You're mocking me aren't you Hermione?"

"Not at all!" Hermione blew the top of her tea and took a long sip. Ron made a disgusted face.

"I don't know how you drink that stuff!"

Hermione just laughed and nuzzled into Ron, feeling warm inside.

* * *

**6th December 2006 (Josef's Birthday)**

"He's very good! He eats all of his vegetables and eats a very wide variety of meats for a toddler of his age! He is excellent at counting and singing his alphabet and he can even do his two times tables! Did you know that it was only last week that he tied his own shoelaces _by himself!" _As Percy lent over to pick up his toddler, Josef, George put two fingers up to his head and pretended to pull an imaginary trigger. This sent Teddy, who was sanding across the room pulling faces at him with Victoire, into a fit of laughter.

"He's gorgeous Penelope!" Penelope smiled kind-heartedly at Lavendar.

"Shesaris looks very pretty in her pink dress today." Lavendar smiled a toothy grin and her eyes darted the room for her four year old but she quickly made it as though she hadn't spotted her when she caught site of Shesaris ripping open one of Josef's presents.

"Excuse me Penelope, I just realised there was something I had to do." Lavendar darted a pointlessly long and crooked trail in case Penelope had been watching and then she rushed over to Shesaris, taking the present from her and placing it back on the table, hoping no-one had seen.

Mrs. Weasley darted around the house saying hello and picking up cups and toys from the floor.

As soon as she walked away from Teddy and Victoire both children slunk around into the kitchen. A few minutes later they rushed out of the kitchen carrying a bag of potatoes. They bolted out onto the patio and out of site.

Ginny sat in a rather sprawled-out, un-lady-like fashion on the couch, pushing at random spots in her stomach.

"What's the matter Gin?" Ron asked, taking a seat next to her.

"This dam baby has its head in my pelvis! He won't bloody move!" She pushed harder into her stomach.

Ron just laughed at her.

"Oh shut up Ron! You wait till Hermione gets to nine months! Then you'll know what painful is." Slowly his laugh faded into an extended nervous grunt.

"So, Is Harry back yet?"

"Yes, he got back about three hours ago, he's over there." Lavendar ravenously snatched up the seat as Ron stood up, engulfing Ginny in speak of how- just four years earlier- Ginny had sat in that very lounge room and scoffed at Lavendar's suggestion of marriage and children. Of course Lavendar didn't know anything about Nakesa and the Death Eaters' attempt at one final attempt of revenge. Not many people did. Naturally, people knew about Anika's pregnancy and short-lived stay, but no one knew that the baby was Harry's and no one realised that Kael wasn't Ginny's son. Even Lavendar, who had seen Ginny whilst she was supposed to be two months pregnant and hadn't been, didn't piece together everything.

No one besides family really saw Ginny in the time that Nakesa had been living with them.

"Look at you now! Two, nearly three kids! _And marriage!_ You didn't waste any time did you Ginny?" Ginny just smiled and shook her head. She dreaded the day that it finally clicked to Lavendar about Kael.

"Mmmm," Ginny smiled and tried to think of a change of subject, but nothing came to her.

"Oi Harry!" Ron made his way through the crowd to where Harry stood, talking to Seamus.

"Hey Ron, how was everything while I was gone?" Ron launched into his story of Ginny's false alarm, but he only got half way through when a gigantic bang came from the veranda.

"Oh my gosh!" Mrs. Weasley rushed out onto the back porch where goop was covering the steps.

She looked around frantically as others made there way out to see what was going on. Harry and Ron had just stepped out onto the cement terrace when something dropped from the sky. It landed on Lavendar's head with a tremendous squelching noise and half of the guests around her were immediately covered I unpleasant smelling goop.

"Ahhhh!" Lavendar screamed looking up into the sky. But tis proved to be a big mistake as another glop ball fell from the sky.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!" She screamed.

Mrs. Weasley looked around frantically as children squealed with joy and frantic, slipping on the goop.

"TEDDY LUPIN, VICTOIRE WEASLEY GET OUT HERE _NOW!_" The crowd fell silent and a few mutters came from around the side of the house.

"Go! It's your turn to take the blame!" Came Teddy's voice.

"Teddy you wuss, Grandma Weasley said both of us, she knows you did it to."

Teddy was pushed around the corner. His hair turned pink, to match the blush on his cheeks.

"Hello everyone." Victoire smiled innocently as she strolled casually around the side of the house.

"Explain… _now!_" Mrs. Weasley boomed.

"What is this disgusting slop?" Lavendar screamed.

"Don't be discouraged by it's smell Lavendar, it's just mashed potato." Teddy stepped closer to Lavendar, scooped a handful of mashed potato from her shoulder and shoved it in his mouth.

"We'll use more butter next time," Teddy told Victoire, who giggled at the comment.

"There won't _be_ a next time! You just wait until your parents get back from Switzerland Victoire. As for you Teddy…" Mrs. Weasley stopped to think for a second. She looked over to Teddy's primary care giver; George. He was looking at Teddy and the hectic mess with a grin so wide it mimicked the ones given to Fred.

"Well, I'll take care of you!"

Teddy stopped making faces at Victoire and his jaw dropped.

"What?! Why not let Uncle George punish me? He looks after me!"

"pfft! Your Uncle George wouldn't know what a punishment was if it was given to him! You need to be taught a lesson!" Teddy nearly made it all of the way off of the porch before Percy caught him.

"Uncle Percy, please, let me go! You've always been the coolest of my uncles… really! I didn't mean it when I said you were a stuck up git who acted as though he had a pigmypuff stuck up your backside."

Percy stopped smiling, "I didn't know you said that."

Teddy turned pink, "Well I didn't mean it… Please let me go!"

Percy shook is head. "No can do. You did the crime, you can do the time."

"Noooo!" Teddy wriggled, but it was no use. He was trapped.

* * *

**Sorry about hte short un-eventfulness of it! Please review and I'll update on that exciting chapter like I promised!**


	18. Playing Happy Family

_**OK, I'm back in buisness. Please read this carefully.  
Kael is seven now, James is five, Albus if four and Lily is two. Hugo is two and Rose is nearly four...  
I have skipped ahead four years since the last chapter... we will dwell at this point before moving foward...  
Please enjoy this and DON'T EVER forget to review!  
If I don't get any, I'm giving up...

* * *

**__**Chapter 18: **__Playing Happy Family_

**January 5****th**** 2010 (Albus turned 4 on the 1****st**** and James turns 5 on the 13****th)**

"Look Mum, It's a love heart!" Lily pointed to a small bruise on Kael's thigh.

"How did you get that?" Ginny asked as Kael stepped into his Pajama pants, pointing to the Knut sized bruise on his thigh.

Kael just shrugged, holding onto his mother's shoulders so that he wouldn't fall over.

"Does it hurt?" Ginny asked; pulling his pajama pants over his jocks and helping him button his silky shirt.

"DADDY!" The front door closed and Lily climbed out of the bath, bolting from the bathroom, as slick as a fish.

"Lily, don't you fall over!" Ginny yelled after her.

_SMACK_.

"OWWWW!" Lily howled.

Ginny bounded to her feet but by the time she was out of the bathroom Harry had Lily in his arms.

"Look what I found," Harry proclaimed, more to Kael than Ginny. "It's a fish!" Harry held out Lily's naked body and Ginny wrapped it in a towel.

"Shall we eat it for dinner?" Asked Kael, a sluice of six-year-old boy.

"Well, what do you think Lily?" Ginny blew raspberries on her stomach and she wriggled eccentrically.

Kael pulled on his pants and Ginny handed Lily to Harry so that she could help him with his buttons.

"So how was your day?" Harry asked.

"Good," Ginny said, undoing the buttons that Kael had mixed up. "I had to go in to the restaurant for a little while because there was a dilemma and the new staff couldn't get the oven to work, they ended up cooking over a blue flame for an hour before they eventually called. But luckily Hermione brought Hugo around to play with Lily so she stayed and minded Lily and I was back in time to pick Alby up from his first day at school." Harry looked over at Ginny.

"Do you miss it Ginny?" He asked, sliding a nappy onto Lily.

"What's that Harry?" Ginny asked, releasing Kael, letting him run from the bathroom to play with James.

"Working. I know you go in occasionally, but you loved your job. I could take some time off so you can go back, or we could put Lily in child care."

Ginny shushed Harry as she hung up the wet towels.

"Compared to being a mother, work is like a root canal… Some were born to do it Harry. I'm just one of those lucky people."

At that moment Kael and James ran down the hall, toy cars in their hands, and Albus chased after them.

Lily wriggled her little body out of Harry's arms and she ran after the boys, disappearing into Kael and James' room at the end of the hall.

Ginny laughed as she hung the saturated bath mat over the bath's edge, "It'll be the other way around soon."

Harry stood still, listening to his children giggle, when Ginny's words struck him.

"Don't say that!" He insisted, gob-smacked. "It'll be _at least_ another nineteen or so years until she even _begins_ to think of boys as anything other than clones of her disgusting monstrosity brothers."

Ginny laughed, snaking her arms around Harry's neck, "that'll make her twenty, Harry. I was dating by the end of fourth year and I had a crush on you before I even started my first."

"Yes, and you were far too young!" Harry insisted, but his eyes showed humor.

Ginny kissed him softly, "you're just saying that because seeing me with anyone else drove you crazy."

Harry laughed, hooking his arms around Ginny, "yeah, maybe." And he kissed her again, deepening quickly.

"_EWWWWW!_" Ginny swung around and Harry looked up to see their four children standing in the hall.

Kael and James' faces were scrunched up in disgusted, Albus hid behind his hands. Lily stuck her fingers in Kael's open mouth and he pushed them away.

Lily giggled and ran at Harry, wrapping her arms around his legs, hiding her face in the back of his robes.

Harry pulled Lily into his arms, "come on you three, time for dinner."

* * *

**6****th**** January 2010**

"_HARRY!_"

Harry had been standing in the kitchen with a hot coffee when Ginny's hysterical scream came from down the hall, too loud for the early morning house.

Harry hastily put his coffee down, but it landed on an angle and the coffee spilt, flooding onto his white shirt, burning him.

He sped down the hall, scooping Albus into his arms so that he wouldn't walk into the kitchen and burn himself on the hot coffee.

"Harry, look at this!"

Kael stood in the middle of the room in only his jocks and silk pajama shirt. On his right thigh was a bruise the size of a bludger, surrounded by several smaller, splodgier bruises. Harry swung Albus onto the bunk bed where James was slowly awaking, then he knelt next to Ginny to examine Kael's thigh.

"Kael, how did you do this?" Harry asked, pressing on the bruise at which Kael did not cringe.

"I don't know Dad, It was a little bruise yesterday and I woke up and now there are lots of them." Kael begun to worry as he examined the worried looks on his parent's faces. "Are they going to chop of my leg?"

"Mummy, do you want me to get the healing book?" Albus asked, remembering the book Ginny had used to heal a graze on his knee.

"It won't help." Harry told Ginny quietly, touching her arm softly as she reached for here wand. "I'll call Ron and Hermione. You get Kael dressed and get in the car, James has school and Albus has pre-school." Ginny rushed out the door and Harry pulled a pair of track pants onto Kael.

Within five minutes Ron, Hermione and Rose stood on the threshold, a sleeping Hugo in Ron's arms.

"I'm so sorry, if I had of known he was sleeping…"

Hermione waved Ginny off, "No,it's fine, I'll make sure everyone gets to school on time." Ginny hugged Hermione and then rushed out the door to join Harry and Kael in the car.

"Anemia right?" Ginny asked, "Kids his age don't get mono, do they?" Dr. Fortington took his wand away from Kael's chest where he had been listening to his heartbeat.

"It could be a virus. Kael is able to be subjected to Muggle disease, is that correct?"

"Yes," Harry mumbled.

"Ok, well I would like to draw some blood, just to run some tests."

Kael tried not to cry during the procedure but by the time Ginny and Harry sat in the waiting room for the results he was white faced and sat on his mother's lap, curled into a ball.

By the time they were called back into the office, an hour later, Kael had well and truly recovered from the drawing of blood and was playing quietly on the rug.

There was another woman in the room when Dr. Fortington called Harry and Ginny back in.

"Kael's tests were a little problematic." Dr. Fortington told Ginny and Harry, "I had to get Dr. Bayly to assist me, she's a Muggle pediatrician."

"Yes, ok, we expected that, but how is that a problem, really. We've known of kaels condition since before he was one." Harry assured the Dr., hoping that this was the only problem they had encountered.

He was wrong.

"Kael's white blood cell count is much lower than normal." Ginny shook her head slowly, trying to remember what white blood cells even did.

"He may have some sort of autoimmune deficient. Or it may just be a lab error." Dr. Bayly told Harry and Ginny. "I'd like to send him up to a hemotologist at the hospital, to repeat the test."

_You have to be kidding,_ thought Ginny. Wishing that the Doctors would just wave their wands and tell Kael he needs to take an antibiotic potion and drink lots of orange juice. "You mean to a Muggle hospital?" Ginny asked.

Dr. Bayly nodded, "Yes, that's right."

Harry took the card from Dr. Bayly's hand. _Robert Conol, London Hospital, Hematology/Oncology._

"_Oncology? _But that's caner." Harry shakes his head, waiting for an answer, but none comes. The doctors are silent.

* * *

**Soooo sorry that this has taken so long! I've started year 11 and I've been REALLY swamped! I have no home Internet and the school has blocked Fanfiction… But it's ok… If you review I'll find a way to update before FRIDAY**

**SO REVIEW PLEASE!!**


	19. Kael Complicated

_**Chapter 19: **__Kael Complicated_

**January 6****th**** 2010**

Sometimes Harry was left to wonder why.

Sometimes things happened to him that made him angry. It was as though someone was playing a game- a game to see how far he could be pushed before he finally cracked.

Harry could remember countless occasions where he found himself asking why.

Infact, when Harry was really thinking deeply, in his very first memory he was sure he'd been asking why.

It had been Dudley's birthday… his sixth one maybe. Dudley sat at the table, ripping open his presents, discarding them as quickly as it took him to rip off the paper. Harry had sat across the table, watching his aunt and uncle coo at their fat son.

Harry, just old enough to realize that he did not have any memory of this event they called a 'birthday', had decided that if Dudley got to have one, he would have one too. Harry, well and truly used to Dudley getting countless indulgence after countless indulgence, had learnt that he would never have the luxury that his over-spoilt cousin would have, and he quickly learnt that if you imagined you had the same, you felt better.

So little Harry had pulled an imaginary box from under the table and placed it gently on top. Then he turned it on all of its angles, familiarizing himself with its six surfaces. Eventually he gradually undid the invisible paper from the imaginary present, carefully folding it and placing it next to him. He did all of this in complete silence, not noticing, as he made a sweetly shocked face whilst discovering what the imaginary gift was, that his cousin had stopped opening presents and, along with his aunt and uncle, was looking at him with the utmost conjecture.

Harry placed the present next to him carefully and pulled another, much smaller, invisible box from under the table.

"What are you doing?" Dudley had spat at him.

"Opening my presents." Harry announced, not looking up from the invisible box.

"It isn't your birthday. And there's nothing there!" Dudley shouted.

"Yes there is." Harry began to tare the next present open.

"Mummy, Daddy, tell him there's nothing there!" Vernon and Petunia, who had stood and stared at Harry with a mix of fright and confusion on their faces, finally spoke up.

"There is nothing there, Dudders." Petunia smoothed her son's hair.

"Stop that nonsense, Boy." Vernon boomed.

"Stop what?"

"That… that thing you're doing."

"I'm just unwrapping my presents like Dudley."

In a flurry of limbs Vernon picked Harry up by the collar of his shirt and gave him a shake.

"There it _nothing there._" Vernon dragged Harry out into the hall and chucked him in his small cupboard under the stairs.

"How _dare _you ruin Dudley's special day," he spat through the vents, and then the lock slid shut and the vents closed.

Harry counted to thirty before turning on the light. He pulled out a couple of plastic figurines that he'd taken from Dudley's enormous stack, and he began to play with them, wondering the same thing he would find himself _still _wondering 24 years down the track… why me.

Harry opened his eyes to the sound of someone's gentle coaxing voice. His first thought was that it was Remus Lupin and that he was lying in a train compartment, seventeen years back, having just fainted from a Dementor attack. When he awoke a little further he realize that this voice was deeper than Remus'. He opened his eyes and realized that he was not a thirteen-year-old sitting in a train compartment with his two best friends. That he was, actually, thirty-years-old and was awakening on the floor of a doctors office, having heard the worse news of his life.

"What do you mean?" Ginny's voice drifted in. Harry sat up onto his chair, not even sure if Ginny had noticed he'd passed out.

"Kael's complete blood count had some abnormal results. His white blood count is very low—1.3. His hemoglobin is 7.5, his hematocrit is 18.4, his platelets are 81,000, and his neutrophils are 0.6. Numbers like that sometimes indicate an autoimmune disease. But Kael's also presenting with twelve percent promyelocytes, and five percent blasts, and that suggests a leukemic syndrome."

Harry and Ginny sat very still for a long time until Ginny finally spoke, "Leukemic."

Dr. Conol nodded. "Leukemia is a blood cancer."

Harry took Ginny's gold hand in his. "What does that _mean?_" he asked, his head fogging.

"Think of bone marrow as a child care center for developing cells. Healthy bodies make blood cells that stay in the marrow unit they're matured enough to go out and fight disease or clot or carry oxygen or do whatever it is they're supposed to do. In a person with leukemia, the child-care's doors are opened too soon. Immature blood cells wind up circulating, unable to do their job. It's not always odd to see promyelocytes in a CBC, but when we looked at Kael's under a microscope, we could see abnormalities." Dr. Conol looked at Ginny and Harry in turn. "I'll need to do a bone marrow aspiration to confirm this, but it seems that Kael has acute promyelocytic leukemia."

Ginny tried to speak but her tongue felt as though it had lodged itself down her throat. Harry finally spoke the question she had been trying to ask.

"Is he… Is he going to die?"

Ginny waited for Dr. Conol to speak. She wanted to shake him and tell him that she would draw the blood for a coag panel herself from Kael's arm if it meant he would take back what he'd said.

"ALP is a very rare subgroup of myeloid leukemia," Dr. Conol spoke softly. "Only about twelve hundred people a year are diagnosed with it. The rate of survival for ALP patients is twenty to thirty percent, if treatment starts immediately."

Harry pushed numbers out of his head, "there's a treatment?" he asked.

"Yes, with aggressive treatment, myeloid leukemias carry a survival prognosis of nine months to three years."

It had only been a year earlier that Ginny and Harry wad watched Kael sleep, clinging in his hand his miniature teddy; Mr. Macaroni.

"I swear, no matter how much his friends slag him, he'll never give up tat teddy." Ginny had told Harry. "We'll have to put it in the pocket of his tux when he gets married."

"We'll need to do that bone marrow aspiration. We'll sedate him with a light general anesthetic. And we can draw the coag panel whilst he's sleeping." Dr. Conol leaned forward towards Harry and Ginny, "You need to know that kids beat the odds. Every single day."

"Ok," Harry stood up, pulling Kael into his arms. "C'mon big boy." Kael looked warily around, slipping his arms into the sleeves of his shirt.

Ginny looked at him, realizing that it must have been a mistake. This had to be someone else's unfortunate vile of blood. There was no way Kael, with his shiny flyaway curls and butterfly smile, could be sick. His face was not the face of someone dying by degrees.

Ginny thought…

She had only known Kael for six years, but if you took every memory, every moment and stretched them out end to end, they'd reach forever.

They roll up a sheet and tuck it under Kael's belly. They tape him down to the examination table, two long straps. One nurse strokes his hand, even after the anesthesia has kicked in and he's asleep. His lower back is bared for the long needle that will go into his iliac crest to extract marrow.

When they gently turn Kael's face to the other side Ginny realizes that the tissue paper beneath his cheek is damp. She realizes than that she'd learnt from her own son that you don't have to be awake to cry.

**Hope you liked! Sorry it was short… PLEASE REVIEW! I won't update until I get enough reviews, I'm making a real effort here! PLEEEEEEEZ!!!!!**


	20. Witch Doctor

_**Chapter 20: **__Witch Doctor_

**January 6****th**** 2010**

Harry drove home in utter silence, Ginny in the passenger seat and Kael in the back.

"Mummy, are you ok?" Kael asked, his voice soft.

"Yes Hun, I'm just thinking."

The silence dragged on, the only sound coming from a child's CD of songs that Lily had insisted on the last time they were in the car.

_I told the witch doctor I was in love with you  
I told the witch doctor you didn't love me too  
And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do  
He said that ... _

"Mum, Dad! Sing with me!" Kael exclaimed, excitedly, the mood around him suddenly lightening, neither Harry nor Ginny had even noticed the song.

Witch Doctor was his favorite song. A ritual over the years had formed without control. Every time the song came on Harry and Ginny would sing the verses and Kael would sing the chorus.

Eventually James, Albus and now Lily began to learn the song. Harry remembered a time the song had come on and they had stopped at a red light. The car next to them seated two very prudent looking adults and their one child. The adults scowled at Harry and Ginny but their child looked miserably in on the laughing children.

"Turn it up! _Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang_!" Kael sung happily and Ginny leant over slowly to turn the song up.

The next verse came on and Harry and Ginny sat silent.

"Sing! You _always_ sing!"

Harry exchanged a glance at Ginny and saw her lips beginning to move, whispering the lyrics.

"C'mon Mum! Sing louder."

Harry and Ginny began to sing, "_I told the witch doctor you didn't love me true, I told the witch doctor you didn't love me nice. And then the witch doctor, he game me this advice. He said to ..._"

"_Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang, walla walla, bing bang. Ooo eee, ooo ah ah tang tang, walla walla, bing bang..._" Kael continued to sing into the chorus and when the verses came Harry and Ginny sang; strong and determined.

Harry looked at Ginny who sung the lyrics with her eyes closed. She sung them as though she had to prove that she was passionate about them. She sung them and tears ran down her cheeks.

Harry looked forward to the road, listening to his son sing gleefully.

He wondered as he drove; not concentrating, knowing the route to home. Harry wondered if it would happen in his sleep. Or if he would cry. If there would be some kind of nurse who would give him something for the pain. Harry envisioned his child dying, whilst he was two feet away, singing at the top of his lungs, laughing hysterically at every different tone of voice he tried.

"_My friend the witch doctor, he taught me what to say. My friend the witch doctor, he taught me what to do. I know that you'll be mine when I say this to you. Oh, Baby ..."_ Harry sung the last verse and then, just as he'd finished and Kael begun his last chorus, Harry's throat swelled shut.

* * *

When Harry entered the house, a sleepy Kael yawning beside him, he found Hermione and Ron asleep on the couch. Harry took Kael down the hall to his room. Rose lay asleep on Kael's bed, James in his own. Harry contemplated dragging the spare mattress from their room but Kael just clambered in next to Rose.

Hugo and Lily lay head-to-toe in Lily's cot and Albus lay, sprawled out, and twisted in his sheets.

When Harry got back to the lounge room Ginny was sitting next to Hermione, who had woken, speaking gently.

"Oh my. surely there is something that they can do. Maria Philiper who works in the department of Muggle's at the Ministry of Magic has cancer. She had to get and operation where they thickened her white blood cells, making them stronger, more mature; can't they just do that?"

Ginny shook her head slowly. "There is no way to physically do it Hermione. Kael can't be operated on with magic. It's impossible. Nothing works." Hermione surrounded Ginny in a hug and Ginny wept.

"Anything you need Ginny, anything at all that Ron and I can do to help, we will. If you need us to look after James, Alby and Lily we will. Anything at all, we're here."

Harry moved further into the lounge room and took a seat next to Ginny.

"Would you take care of them please Hermione? We need to take Kael back to the hospital tomorrow; we need to see an oncologist. He's going to answer our questions… It may take a while."

"Anything…" Hermione smiled faintly. "But, um… the kids have been asking what's been going on. James want's to know if Kael's been naughty and Albus wants to know the mechanics of everything."

Ginny turned to Harry, then back to Hermione.

"I don't know what we could possibly tell them… Just tell them that Kael's sick, and we need to help him get better… he's going to get better… he is." Ginny said it to re-assure herself, but when her eyes came into focus she realized that tears were spilling down Hermione's face.

* * *

Harry and Ginny lay in bed that night, unable to slip into the subconscious that they yearned for. They had not spoken in the three hours they had laid in bed, but both knew that the other was not sleeping.

Ginny lay in wonder, trying to get to grips as to why this was happening.

_This is happening because I left Kael home alone for five minutes last week_ she thought, staring up at the dark ceiling._ This is happening because I yelled at James last week. Because I wouldn't give Lily the lollies she wanted at the grocery store. Because I won't read Albus a psychology book as a bedtime story. This is happening because, for a split second, I wondered what my life would be like if there was no Kael. No James, Albus or Lily. This is happening because I did not realize how good I have it._

"Do you think I did it to him?" Harry asked, making Ginny jump out of her thoughts.

"Did it to him?" Ginny rolled over to face Harry in the darkness. "How?"

"Like, my genes, you know?"

Ginny lay there silently.

"Just so you know," she said, eventually, louder than intended, "I'm not going to let Kael die."

There was an awful sound from Ginny's side – like a wounded animal, a drowning gasp. Then Harry pressed his face against Ginny's shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, holding on as though he was losing grip of the earth. "I'm not," she repeated, but even to her, it sounded like she was trying too hard.

* * *

**7****th**** January 2010**

Ginny was surprised to find that there was an unexpected comfort to being at he oncology wing of the hospital. She couldn't help but feel as though she was part of a club. From the kind parking attendant to the children who carried multi-coloured emesis basins under their arms like teddy bears—_these people, _Ginny thought, _have all been here before us, and there's safety in numbers_.

Harry, Ginny and Kael took the elevator to the third floor, to the office of Doctor Victor Providence. Ginny had thought this as a horrible name for a cancer doctor. Dr. Providence, Dr. Possibility, Dr. Chance. Why not Dr. Definite, or at least Dr. Probable? Why did it have to be Providence?

"Are they going to give me another needle?" Kael asked, looking up at his mother with his puppy dog eyes.

"I'm not sure." And she wasn't… about anything.

"He's late." Mutters Harry as they sat in the uncomfortable chairs of the waiting room.

Ginny stood from her chair and pulled a rubber glove from its dispenser, blowing it up and throwing it in the air, slapping it towards Kael who had been whining of boredom. She ignored the bold sign below the glove dispenser that warned parents not to do exactly that.

Kael picked it up and sat in the chairs a few meters from where Harry and Ginny sat. He hit the balloon to Harry, who hit it back. Then to Ginny, who hit it back.

And that's how it went, back and forth, until Dr. Providence came into the waiting room, catching the makeshift balloon in one hand, frowning at it.

"Well, I can see that there is already a problem."

Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance. Was this coldhearted man the one who was going to lead them through the war, their general, their knight in shining armour?

Before Harry had a chance to apologize - knowing by the thin line that was Ginny's lips, that she wouldn't do it – Dr. Providence pulled out a sharpie marker and drew a smiley face with rectangle rimmed like his own, on the balloon. "There," he says, and with a smile that changes him in both Harry and Ginny's mind, he tosses it back to Kael in an exaggerated tennis-like serve.

* * *

**WOW! I'm on a roll! Two chapters in ONE DAY! Gosh, I have to be close to making up for the chapters I've missed 'ey?**

**Well, on a more serious note, I'm not too pleased at the amount of reviews I have been getting! So please! Take a second to review, it REALLY DOES make my day!!**

**Sarah XX**


	21. Staying Stong

_**Chapter 21:**__Staying Strong_

**January 9****th**** 2010**

Thirty-six hours after Kael was officially diagnosed with APL, Harry and Ginny were given the opportunity to ask questions.

Harry had dropped Kael off to Hermione's with the rest of the children.

In front of them sat an array of doctors, nurses and psychiatrists. The nurses, Ginny realised, were the ones who gave the questions they were desperate for.

After the nurses had explained the complications of leukemia they told Harry and Ginny that as long as the organs held up, you could potentially reinduce the patient into remission every time there is a re-lapse. One nurse explained that with ALP t was a bit different because once you had used one technique, you couldn't really rely on that one again.

Dr. Providence explained that Kael would start a week of chemotherapy, in the hopes that it would kill off any diseased cells and put him into remission. Dr. Providence explained that Kael may experience some vomiting and nausea and that he'd also lose his hair.

At this small detail a tiny cry escaped from Ginny's lips. It was such a small thing, but it would be the banner that would let others know what was wrong with Kael. Ginny remembered his first haircut; the golden ringlets falling to the floor, curling like coins.

"And then what?" Harry asked, his voice barely audible.

"And then we watch him," replied Dr. Providence. "You'll have to bring him to the ER if there is any sign of relapse. If he relapses we may try to transplant someone else's marrow into Kael to produce blood cells. Does Kael have any siblings?"

Harry immediately thought to James, Albus and Lily. "We have three other children. Two boys and a girl."

Ginny touched Harry's arm slightly and as he looked at her he realized. The chances that James, Albus or Lily had the same blood-type as Kael was not as good as it would be if they were fully related. For the first time in six years Harry was forced to once again think of Anika and all she'd done.

"Kael is only half brother to our other three children." Ginny sighed.

"Well there is still a good chance as they are still half-blood relatives." Dr. Providence sided. "Either one of them may end up a match for an allogeneic transplant."

Harry looked at Dr. Providence. The information was endless.

Ginny tried her hardest to take all of the information in. They were telling her not to think; just to give up her child to them, because if she didn't, he was going to die.

For every answer they were given, a new set of questions would sprout.

_Will his hair grow back?_

_Will he ever go to school?_

_Can he play with friends?_

_Did this happen because of where we live?_

_Did this happen because of who we are?_

"What will it be like," Ginny heard herself ask, "if he dies?"

Dr. Chance looked at her and Ginny expected that he would have thought she meant 'what would it be like for me.' But he answered her question in the way she'd intended to ask it.

"It depends on what he succumbs to," Dr. Providence explained. "If it's an infection, he'll be in respiratory distress and on a ventilator. If it's haemorrhage, he'll bleed out after losing consciousness. If it's organ failure, the characteristics will vary, depending on the system in distress. Often there is a combination of all of these.

"Will he know what's happening?" Ginny asked, but what she really meant was: _How am I going to survive this?_

"Mrs. Potter," Dr. Providence says, as if he'd heard Ginny's unspoken question. "Of the twenty kids here today, ten will be dead in the next few years. I can not tell you which group Kael will be in."

Ginny and Harry moved through the day in a blur, always by the other's side but feeling that they could have been a million miles away.

* * *

To save Kael's life, part of him had to die. That was the purpose of chemotherapy; to wipe out all of the diseased cells.

Kael spoke few questions. As they were getting the central line ready to feed into his chest, armed with a three pronged port that would supply him with administrations, IV fluids and blood drawls, Kael turned to his mother and held out his hand.

"I know I'm sick Mum." He told her as she took his hand in hers. "But I'm going to get better. I have to get better, I've still got to teach Lily how to ride a broom and tie her shoelaces."

A chill ran from Ginny's shoulder blades and spread through-out her entire body, like a flash virus. "I know Hun." She said, but she spoke so silently she wasn't even sure if he'd heard.

They told Harry and Ginny that Kael would most likely get sick within a few days, but it only took six hours before Ginny had to run for the emesis basin. Harry pressed the call button and a nurse was by Kael's side in a matter of about 7 seconds.

"I'll get him some Reglan." And then she disappeared.

"I don't want to do this anymore." after his fourth spit-up Kael started to weep.

Ginny looked at her son from the sink that she used to empty his basin. She wanted to hold him and tell him that it was going to be ok… but the truth was; this was only the beginning. He had to be strong, because this was only the beginning, there was much more to come. She had to be strong for him.

Every time this happened Harry was at Kael's side, whipping his head whilst Ginny took away the emesis basin. Every time Kael had a spit up Harry could kiss him on the forehead and say to him, "you _are_ going to get through this." But Ginny wasn't quite sure if he was only talking to himself.

Ginny brought the basin back and sat it next to the bed. She was beginning to make a sort of ballet out of everything. Raising the emesis basin to Kael's mouth, racing over to the sink to rinse it out - because if she focused on sandbagging the beachhead, she could ignore the tsunami that she was all too aware, was coming.

If she tried it any other way, she'd surely go crazy.

* * *

**January 10****th**** 2010**

"Why are we going to the host-able?" James asked Hermione as she slipped his jacket on.

"Just to see Kael Honey, don't you want to see your brother?"

James contemplated this for a while before answering, "I like having all of the toys for me."

Hermione sunk to her knees in front of James and grasp him by the shoulders.

"Don't you ever say that!" She shouted at him, taking him completely by surprise. "Don't you EVER say that, you hear me? Do you hear me?!"

"HERMIONE!" Ron pulled James away from Hermione. He dropped to his knees and pulled her sobbing body towards him. He sat down and Hermione curled her hands into fists around his shirt, sobbing into his chest.

"He can't say that, he can't." Hermione sobbed.

Ron looked over to James, who had tears in his eyes, on the verge of spilling over.

Lily, who had stood next to Albus, burst into tears, startled by the scene.

Hermione looked up and whipped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

"Come here Lily." Hermione opened her arms and Lily squished in-between Ron and Hermione, tucking her legs up so that she was cradled between them.

Ron looked up just in time to catch James run down the hall.

"I'll go talk to him." Albus sighed, slipping his book back into his bag, such a sensible splice of four-year-old.

Hermione stood and straightened her clothes, Ron able to convert Lily's crying to laughter by blowing raspberries on her stomach.

Hermione pulled her hair back and as she did James bolted towards her, wrapping his arms around her knees.

"I'm sorry Aunty Mione! Kael can have all of my toys! I just want him to be better." Hermione lifted Kael into his arms and cuddled him.

* * *

**January 13****th**** 2010**

"Happy birthday my big boy!" Mrs. Weasley ravished James in kisses.

"Nanna, don't!" James struggled to get away but Mrs. Weasley just held him tighter.

"Doesn't it suck James?" Teddy laughed as he sat, draped across one of the miss-matching armchairs in the Weasley's living room.

"Mum, have you ever considered buying a new house?" Mrs. Weasley let go of James and turned to her son.

"Ronald, there is nothing wrong with this house."

"I know that, all I'm saying is that we've lived in this house all our lives. It's wobbly and too big for just you and Dad. The thing's practically falling down."

Mrs. Weasley scolded her youngest son.

"Ronald, I have mothered my seven children in this house. I have spent every Christmas here with my children, that includes Harry and Hermione too. I have watched my children and grandchildren grow in this house and yes Ronald, it is rickety, but I will not sell it until it falls down around me!"

Ron's ears went red and he retreated from the argument.

"That'd probably happen if we turned the volume up on the stereo too loud." George whispered to Teddy and he cracked up.

Over the years the Weasley's house had become filled with Muggle inventions. They had a T.V, a Stereo, a blender, a coffee maker (of which Mr. Weasley became quite obsessed with for a while) and many other Muggle contraptions.

Hermione sat next to James and handed him his present. "This is from your mum and dad. Harry's going to come round after lunch and Ginny will come for dinner, ok?" James looked up sceptically.

"What about Kael?" James whispered.

"Oh, Kael can't come, Honey. But I'm sure your mum will take you to see him tonight if he's feeling better." James nodded slowly.

Hermione looked around the crowded lounge room… These people did not know… none of them knew about Kael.

"Mummy, I was playing with the dough then Lily _snatched_ it off of me!" Hermione looked down at Hugo.

She pulled him into her arms, hugging him, thanking god that he wasn't ill. She didn't know how or if - after April and Arte - she'd be able to cope.

* * *

**There you have it! Hope you enjoyed my **_**slightly**_** sad chapter… If you find it un-eventful, don't stress! It'll get more exciting soon! PLEASE REVIEW!**

**I was thinking about it the other day and I realised something… This story will probably have like 35-40 chapters!! **

**Well, please review!!**


	22. Holiday

_**Chapter 22: **_Holiday

**16****th**** January 2010**

Kael was released from hospital a full week after his admission for induction chemotherapy. The central lines still snaked from his chest bells out of the pyjama shirt that he had worn on the morning he was admitted. Ginny swore to herself that she would burn the shirt when they got home.

The nurses gave Harry and Ginny a pep talk for encouragement, and a long list of instructions to follow: when to and when not to call the emergency room, when to come back for more chemotherapy, how to be careful during Kael's period of immunosuppression.

At six the next morning, the door to Harry and Ginny's bedroom opened.

Ginny and Harry snapped awake to see Kael tiptoeing towards there bed.

"What is it Honey?" Ginny asked.

Kael did not speak; he just lifted his hand to his head and threaded his fingers through his blonde hair. It came out in thick clumps, drifting to the carpet like a small blizzard.

* * *

**19****th**** February 2010**

On Hugo's 3rd birthday – thirty-three days after Kael was announced 'in remission' – Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione decided to take their children for a drive up to the snowy mountains. Harry hadn't intended the trip to become such a large event, but once he had invited Bill and his daughters and Dean and Seamus, including there children, the group had already reached ten.

"Why don't you take May along Ginny?" Mrs. Weasley had asked the night before.

"She's still settling in, I think being around others her own age would help. After all, she just gained a considerable number of family members considering she's never had any siblings."

Mrs. Weasley had found seven-year-old May asleep on the rotten couch she'd put on the curb to be taken by the trash collectors.

May said her mum had left her and then showed her the article that announced the death of a woman, by over dose.

After a considerable amount of research and paperwork it was established that the only family May had, was her father, who was in prison in America.

After more research and paperwork Charlie and his wife Lavita were granted custody of May in June 2009.

Ginny knew that there was no way she was going to be able to turn her mother down.

The count was up to eleven.

Of course, after that Teddy and Victoire were added to this count, including Mariah, Victoire's younger sister. She then insisted on Paige and Josef coming. Harry realised that it would be playing favourites for him to agree for Charlie and Bill's children to join but not Percy's. Ron agreed on the grounds that Percy stay home. That was 15.

Ron was ready to put his foot down but Victoire insisted that Sarabella Parkinson be allowed to come, and Teddy did the same with Maxwell and Froggy Baddock.

Hermione and Ginny went around to see Pansy Parkinson, quite intent on seeing what she had been doing with her life, to ask for permission to take her daughter.

No one answered the door.

Ginny went around the side and peered in the window, astounded at what she saw. The house was covered from head to toe in grime.

"Hermione, you're going to want to see this!" Hermione rushed around to the side of the house.

The women managed to get in through the un-locked backdoor. The power had been cut off and the water didn't run. The house was considerably empty, sporting only an old sofa and a hard chair in the lounge room. The oven had no gas and there was no refrigerator.

"Are you sure some-one even lives here?" Ginny yelled to Hermione, who had gone down the hall. There was a drum with burned-out ashes in the center of the lounge room.

Hermione screamed and Ginny was at her side in a second.

There, in the master bedroom, was Pansy Parkinson.

Her feet scraped lightly across a wooden chair.

"We have to get her down." Ginny said, determination in her voice.

Hermione and Ginny got Pansy's rigid, pale body down and laid her on the bed.

"How long has she been like this?" Ginny asked, feeling sick at the thought of little Sarabella having to see her mother in such a state.

"I'd say, considering the discomposure, about two to three weeks."

Ginny held her sleeve up to her mouth and breathed into that.

"How could no-one realise?"

Hermione shook her head, disgusted and sad.

"I don't know. I feel worst for her daughter."

Later that day Ginny went out into the yard to where Victoire, Sarabella, Teddy, Maxwell and Froggy were playing Fairies and Goblins, and took Sarabella aside.

"Hermione and I went to see your mother today Bell. Do you know where she is?"

Sarabella nodded. "Yeah, she's in her room."

Ginny swallowed.

"Bell, do you know that your mum is…"

"Dead? Yeah. Can I go back to playing please?"

Ginny couldn't help herself but to hug Sarabella, "sure."

"What did she say?" Hermione asked.

Ginny just shook her head.

"It's going to get so much harder for that poor girl."

* * *

Harry and Ron were appointed the duty of asking Froggy and Maxwell's parents for permission for the trip.

"Well Hel-lo!" Slurred the woman who opened the door to the house that Maxwell and Froggy had taken Harry and Ron to.

"Hello, my name's Harry and this is Ron. You're sons here…" Harry didn't get to finish his sentence before the woman caught sight of the two boys and aimed a sharp slap at the side of Maxwell's head.

"What have you done now you little shits!?" She screamed.

"Get inside!" Maxwell and Froggy rushed inside, the woman kicked Froggy as he ran past.

"Ma'am, please, they didn't do anything wrong."

"Please, call me Samantha. Samantha Nivira; actually it's Samantha Baddock, but for the sake of you two, we can pretend it isn't." Samantha shrieked in laughter, surprisingly chilling Harry's spine.

"Samantha, my wife and I would like to know if we can take Maxwell and Froggy up to the snowy mountains with our children this weekend."

Samantha didn't seem to hear all the details. Just the words 'my wife' and something about her sons.

"Wife hey? Well that's a shame… well my doors always open." Mrs. Baddock made to shut the door but Harry held it open.

"About Maxwell and Froggy?"

Samantha laughed, "oh, yeah. If you want the little shits, take 'em. Hell, keep 'em if you'd like," She shrieked again and shut the door.

They stood, facing to door, frozen for a few seconds.

"Man," Ron muttered, "some people just aren't fit to have children.

This had the count up to 18.

Then George insisted that Ron and Ginny take Gabe and Fergus along for the ride.

The final count reached 20 children.

The adults included Harry and Ginny, Hermione and Ron, Charlie and Lavita, Bill (Fleur was visiting her sister in the hospital after the birth of her first child), Dean and Seamus (who's wives were spending the weekend at a day spa) and George (Angelina was away for Quidditch season).

Teddy, Maxwell, Froggy, Kael, Josef and Jared all crammed into the four-wheel-drive, which Harry and Ron drove.

Sarabella, Victoire, Mariah, May and Shesaris all piled in the car with Charlie and Lavita.

Gabe, Fergus and James rode with George and Bill.

Hugo, Lily and Jesanna (the babies), all rode in the car with Ginny and Hermione.

And Albus, Rose and Sara rode with Dean and Seamus.

"Wow, that does feel weird." Teddy laughed as her ran his hand over the stubble growing from Kael's head.

"Let me feel!" Froggy and Jared insisted.

After everyone had had a feel of Kael's head he pulled his beanie back on.

"What's it feel like being bald?" Maxwell asked.

"It's pretty cool to touch, but my head get's cold."

The boys laughed.

Harry smiled at Ron as they listened to the random subjects of the children.

"This is exactly what he needed." Harry told him.

"Something to take his mind off of everything that's happened. To be around kids his own age." Ron nodded, understanding.

Teddy sat in the back, against the right hand side window; Kael sat in the middle and Josef on the left hand side. The same order applied for Froggy, Jared and Maxwell a row back.

An hour into travelling, Charlie and Lavita pulled up alongside Harry and Ron to let then know what Hermione and Ginny had decided for lunch.

The windows rolled down in both cars and Teddy turned to see Victoire sitting across from him, in the left hand side seat. Sarabella and Shesaris sat next to her and Mariah and May sat behind them

Victoire smiled and waved at Teddy. "Hello Ted-ee." She smiled.

Teddy went red in the cheeks and Kael pulled his own beanie off, pulling it onto Teddy's head and over his eyes.

The car of boys erupted with laughter and Harry shook his head, laughing, as he spoke to Lavita in the passenger seat.

"I tell you what," Lavita laughed. "Six boys between the ages of seven and twelve. You're game."

Ron leaned towards the driver-side window.

"Yeah, we're starting to realise what we've gotten ourselves into and there's still five hours of driving to go." He laughed.

"Apparently Ginny and Hermione are having a nice civilised conversation. Lily, Hugo and Jesanna fell asleep within the first forty-five minutes." Charlie snickered.

"That sounds about right." Harry sighed. "How are the girls?"

Lavita nodded. "They're good. Just braiding each-other's hair and playing with their dolls."

Harry shook his head and smiled.

Charlie and Lavita pulled away and George and Bill pulled up beside them.

"Wanna trade?" George asked, not waiting for a greeting.

"You'd trade three boys for six?" Ron asked.

"You forget little brother. This is James, Gabe and Fergus we're talking about." Bill said.

Ron laughed, "Right, I forgot. Nah, sorry, you're on your own." And they pulled away, up to the front of the line where Dean and Seamus had pulled over.

"How's it going?" Harry asked.

"Good." Replied Dean. "The worst one here is Sara. Rose and Albus are Happy to sit and read, but Sara insists on me reading out every single rode side sign and explaining the mechanics and rules of it to her." Ron and Harry laughed at Dean's talkative daughter.

"How's Jared?" Dean asked.

"Good." Harry smiled, "they're just having Tetris tournaments."

"I wonder how Jesanna and Shesaris are behaving," Seamus wondered.

"Well Bill says that Jesanna, Hugo and Lily are all asleep, and when we talked to Charlie and Lavita, Victoire was braiding Shesaris' hair."

Seamus laughed, "I bet she's loving that."

"Well we better go if we're going to make it to the cabins before fall." Ron announced and Harry pulled out of the rest stop, back onto the road.

* * *

**23****rd**** February 2010**

In late February Lee Jordan held a 10th birthday party for his daughter Ranessa.

Lee had gone straight from commentating Hogwarts Quidditch matches, to commentating international Quidditch games.

He knew every Quidditch player by name and they all knew him.

The Potters and most of the Weasleys received invites.

It was good to see George doing some muchly needed catch-up.

Lee was intrigued by Teddy's metamorphic abilities and laughed at how similar Gabe and Fergus were to how Fred and George had been.

"They're just like you and Fred were as kids." He laughed.

People brought Fred up these days, but it was always in the recounting of joyous memories.

"Actually, Fred and I didn't figure out that, if you tied a rubber band to a cat's tail it ran around like crazy until it fell off, until we were seven. Gabe and Fergus aren't even five yet and Angelina's poor cat Frizbee is the fittest cat in England."

Ranessa received many presents, all which happened to include Quidditch.

After the cake the children all went outside to play a miniature game of Quidditch. There were no bludgers, the snitch didn't move quite as fast and was only worth sixty points, the field was a quarter of the size and the broomsticks had special locks on them preventing them from flying any higher than three and a half metres off the ground… but the kids had a blast.

"Ready? GO!" Lee shouted.

The first game went for about seven seconds as Kael caught the snitch.

"Awww Kael. We didn't even get a chance to score!" Teddy wined, but Harry couldn't have been more over-joyed.

Lee eventually ended up getting out a real snitch for Kael and the second game begun.

There were two teams: the red and the blue.

The red team consisted of Kael, Ranessa, Macorbious Creevy, Jasmine Flint and Samantha Chang.

The blue team consisted of Teddy, Lucas Zabini, Narissa McDougall, Samarian Wood and Jared Thomas.

There was also a supplementary team who played the winner. This team consisted of Zachoni Creevy, Mackenzie Farlow, Lisa Greengrass- Lloyd and Sarabella Parkinson.

The ones who didn't play sat on the side lines and cheered.

Kael caught the snitch after fifteen minutes and his team won by a goal.

"Did you see that Dad?" he asked, running over to get his water bottle.

He laid down on the grass panting but after a few seconds he began to shake violently.

"He's burning up!" Ginny yelled.

Harry scooped Kael into his arms and they drove to the hospital as fast as possible.

**Ahhh!! Please review!!**


	23. Staying With Us

_**Chapter 23:**__Staying With Us_

**23****rd**** February 2010**

"What's wrong with Kael, Mum?" James asked, twisting around to where his mother sat in the back seat, cradling Kael.

Ginny automatically wished that she had thought ahead enough to tell George to take James home. But James had been right there, and followed them out.

A million thoughts ran through Ginny's head as she soothed Kael.

She'd have to remember to call Ron and Hermione and ask if they could have James, Alby and Lily for longer than just Ranessa's party.

Ginny had wondered, just after Kael was discharged from the hospital, how she would know, if any abnormalities arose, wether to take Kael to the hospital or not.

It seemed ridiculous now that she _ever _thought she wouldn't know, immediately, what _sick_ looked like.

When they got to the hospital the doctors hovered around Kael's body, taking from him what they needed. He was pan-cultured and given a spinal tap to try and isolate the cause of the infection and rule out Meningitis. A radiologist took a scan of Kael's chest with a portable x-ray machine, to see if the infection was in his lungs.

Later on, the doctor put the chest film on the light panel outside the door. Kael's ribs seem as thin as matchsticks and there was a large grey blot, just off center.

Ginny felt her legs go weak. Harry had to catch her before she smashed her knees on the hard tile floor.

"I knew it," she breathed, hyperventilating quickly. "It's a tumour, I knew it."

The doctor put his hand on her shoulder.

"Mrs. Potter. That's Kael's heart."

* * *

Pancytopenia is a fancy word that means there was nothing in Kael's body to fight infection.

This meant, Dr. Providence had said, that the chemo had worked—that a great majority of the white blood cells had been wiped out. It also meant that nadir sepsis—a post-chemo infection—was not a likelihood, but a given.

Kael was dosed with Tylenol to reduce his fever. He had blood, urine and respiratory secretion cultures taken, so that the appropriate anti-biotic could be administered.

It took six hours before he was free of the rigors—a round of violent shakes so fierce he was in danger of sliding off the bed.

A nurse who had tied Kael's short hair in a piggy-tail of curls and helped him colour in a motorbike picture a few weeks back, took Kael's temperature. Then she's turned and said, "Ginny, you can breath now."

Kael's face looked as tiny and white as a distant moon—still, remote, cold. He looked like a corpse… even worse than that; it was a relief to Ginny to see him like this, compared to watching him suffer.

"Hey," Harry touched the crown of Ginny's head. James lay in a nest of their coats, asleep. It was almost midnight and Ginny was still in her semi-formal dress, she'd wanted to look nice whilst catching up with so many people she hadn't seen since Hogwarts. It seemed stupid and selfish to her now.

"I'm going to take James home, I'll let Hermione and Ron know what's happening. I had to be quick on the payphone so all they know is that we're at the hospital." Ginny nodded and Harry leant down and kissed her on the forehead. "Do you want me to bring me anything?" Harry asked as he stopped at the door.

"Just a pair of trackies and a t-shirt." She said, scooting her chair closer to Kael's bed.

"Ok," and he was gone.

Ginny looked down at Kael's face, so much like Harry's.

_Kael, honey, please fight this. _Ginny said in her head. _Please get through this… I need you to… _Ginny found herself remembering being in Saint Mungo's, waiting with Harry as Kael was born. She remembered being so twisted with hurt and rege; wishing that the umbilical cord were wrapped around the baby's neck. She remembered wishing that Anika would take him with her when she died.

And then a vision came; in a flash it went as fast as it came. Anika's face as Ginny pointed her wand at it. Anika's silky blonde hair sticking to her face from the perspiration of having just given birth; her eye make-up smudged and dirt on her face from battling earlier that evening. And then her stone cold face once Ginny had cast her away.

_Please Kael, I'm sorry. But she wasn't worthy of such a beautiful child... Please…_ Ginny begged.

She took Kael's hand and measured it against her own.

His eyes slit open. For a moment he struggled, unsure of where he was.

"Kael," Ginny whispered. "It's ok, I'm right here." As he turned his head and focused on her, she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed the center of it.

"You are so brave," she told him, and then she smiled. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."

To Ginny's surprise Kael's expression changed to perplexity and he shook his head. "No Mummy," he said. "You'd be sick."

* * *

**24****th**** February 2010**

Harry drove towards the hospital, Albus in the car seat in the back.

The nurses had taken a blood sample from James the night before to see if he was a match for Kael; he wasn't. Harry decided that he wouldn't put all of his children through the same thing if he didn't have to.

"Dad? Do busses ever fall on people?" Albus asked from the back seat.

"Like out of trees?" Harry asked, taking a left.

"No. Like… just over." He made a flopping motion with his hand.

"Only if the weather's really bad or the driver's going too fast." Albus nodded, accepting Harry's answer.

"Dad? Do you have a favourite number?"

"Four." Harry answered. This was the number of children he had, and hopefully it would stay that way. "How about you?"

"Eight. Because it is the same upside-down as it is right-way-up. And it looks like a race track if it's lying down."

"Dad? Do we have special scissors to cut meat?" Albus asked.

"We do," Harry answered, taking a right and driving past a cemetery, headstones canted forward and back like a set of yellow teeth.

"Dad?" Albus asked, "is that were Kael will go?"

The question, as innocent as any other Albus would ask, made Harry's legs go weak. He pulled the car over and put his hazard lights on. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt and turned around. "No Alby," Harry told Albus. "He's staying with us."

* * *

**24****th**** February 2010**

"Mr. and Mrs. Potter?"

Harry looked up quickly, Lily on his lap.

The blood test for Albus had come back negative; Lily was Kael's last chance.

"Lily's test has come back." Dr. Providence sat in his seat behind his desk.

His desk sported a small array of pictures. One of his wife in a sarong on a beach, a family photo, and one of his daughter in a fairy outfit at age six.

"She's a match."

Ginny's insides danced around inside her, but all she could do was muster a smile.

"Now what?" Harry asked.

"Well, we'll need to take some tissue from Lily, for when Kael's ready for it… with any luck, this will put him in remission." Ginny and Harry nodded and Ginny suddenly realised that she'd been squeezing Lily's hand.

**PLEASE REVIEW! I worked so hard on this chapter! Please review!**


	24. Possibilities

_**Chapter 24: **__Possibilities_

**25****th**** February 2010**

Day zero of Kael's pre-transplant regimen started the day after tissue was taken from Lily.

Harry decided to go home and collect clothing and spend some time with the other three children who they had been un-purposely neglecting since Kael had relapsed.

He took Lily for an ice-cream on the way there, as a reward for being so good whilst the nurses took tissue.

Kael was given a paediatric cocktail for sedation, and under any other circumstance, Ginny would have found this funny. Kael couldn't find his feet and every time he stood up, he fell down. It struck Ginny that this was what Kael would look like the first time he got drunk on Fire Whisky in his sixth or seventh year. Then it struck Ginny that he may never live that long.

A therapist came to take Kael to an RT suite. Ginny could see the fear in his eyes and she reminded him that she was right there.

"I won't take my eyes off of you." She'd said.

The room was large, with jungle murals painted on the walls. The linear accelerators were built into the ceiling and a pit bellow the treatment table, which was little more than a canvas cot covered with a sheet. The radiation therapist placed thick lead pieces like beans onto Kael's chest and told him not to move.

Ginny stared at Kael through the protective glass wall. Gamma rays, Leukemia, parenthood. It was the things that you couldn't see coming that were strong enough to kill you.

* * *

**5****th**** March 2010**

Unlike January's chemo, this course of treatment had taken a little boy who didn't even have a runny nose, and had turned him into a physical wreak. Three days of radiation had caused constant diarrhoea, and put Kael back in a diaper. At first he'd been embarrassed but now he was too sick to care. The following five days of chemo had his throat lined with thick mucus, which had him clutching at a suction tube as if it was a life preserver.

When he was awake, he asked Ginny and Harry to leave the room for a little while. They watched him through the two way mirror that he hadn't noticed was there, wondering why.

"Why does he want us to leave?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Ginny watched Kael through the mirror. He sat up and buried his face in his hands, shaking.

"He doesn't want us to see him cry."

* * *

**6****th**** March 2010**

Since Day Six, when Kael's white blood cell and neurophil counts began to plummet, he had been in reverse isolation. Any germ could kill him now; for this reason, the world was made to keep its distance. Visitors to his room were restricted, and those who were allowed in looked like spacemen, gowned and masked.

The number of people who wanted to visit Kael had grown since Ron had let slip that Kael was sick.

"I'm sorry Harry. But Mum wanted to throw me a birthday party for my 29th. I told her I really wasn't in the mood to celebrate. Then she started nagging me about why Hermione and I were always looking after James, Albus and Lily. I had to tell her." Harry felt awful for missing Ron's birthday on the 1st of March. But that was the day Kael became violently ill from the chemo.

"It's alright, they were going to find out sooner or later."

Kael had to read books whilst wearing rubber gloves. No plants or flowers were allowed in his room as they carried bacteria that could kill him. Any toy given to him had to be scrubbed down with disinfectant.

He slept with Mr. Macaroni (his little blue bear), sealed in a Ziploc bag that rustled all night and sometimes woke him up.

Harry and Ginny sat outside the anteroom, waiting. Whilst Kael slept Ginny practiced giving injections to an orange. After the transplant, Kael would need growth factor shots, and Ginny knew that the chore would fall to her… Harry wouldn't be able to do it. She would need to make sure that she had the angle just right and that she was giving the correct amount of pressure. The speed with which you pushed the needle down could cause more or less pain.

She pricked the thick skin of the orange until she felt the soft give of the tissue underneath.

The orange, of course, didn't cry when you made a mistake. But the nurses had told Ginny that injecting Kael wouldn't feel much different.

Harry picked up an orange and began to peel it.

"Put that down!"

"I'm hungry." Harry nodded at the fruit in Ginny's hands. "And you already have your patient."

"For all you know that was someone _else's. _Merlin knows what it's doped up with."

Suddenly Dr. Providence turned the corner and approached Harry and Ginny. Donna, an oncology nurse, walked beside him, brandishing an IV bag filled with crimson liquid. "Drum roll," she said.

Ginny and Harry put down the oranges, followed them into the anteroom, and suited up so that they could go within ten feet of their son.

Within minutes Donna had attached the bag to a pole, and connected the drip to Kael's central line. It was so anticlimactic that Kael didn't even wake up. Ginny stood on one side as Harry stood on the other.

Harry looked down at Kael's hips, the lilac crest, where bone marrow was made. Through some miracle, the stem cells of Lily's will find their way to the right spot.

"Well," Dr. Providence said, and they all watched the blood slowly slide through the tubing, a Crazy Straw of possibility.

**OMG! Please Review! If you won't, I won't update!**

**So please take a second to review, it REALLY DOES make my day!!**

**Love you all!**

**Sarah xx**


	25. Celebrations

_**Chapter 25: **__Celebrations_

**27****th**** March 2010**

Ron sat on one of the hard chairs in his Mum's kitchen. The door was open and he could see Sarabella, looking tiny compared to the big recliner she sat in, reading a book with Arthur.

"So, what? She's been here ever since?"

Mrs. Weasley scolded her son and pulled the kitchen door shut.

"She's ten in September Ron, she isn't stupid, she knows what's going on, when people are talking about her."

"All I'm saying is, someone could be looking for her."

Mrs. Weasley shook her head.

"Arthur managed to weasel information out of the morgue database when they took Pansy away. According to them, she doesn't have any children. She must have had a home-birth. According to them, Sarabella doesn't even exist."

Ron pulled the hot coffee towards himself, warming his hands with it.

"What if she told the father, or someone else, and they go over to her house and realise that Sarabella's not there?"

"Ronald, for _two weeks _she lived without an adult. She washed with _cold water_ from the water tank, she kept warm by lighting a fire in a drum, and she was living off of _cereal_ for Merlins sake. And anyway, I left a note with our contact details. As far as I'm concerned, I've done all I can." Mrs. Weasley turned back to the sink.

"What about the authorities Mum, you and Dad will get in lots of trouble if you're found out, then how will Sarabella feel? I think she's had enough family issues already."

Mrs. Weasley turned around, brandishing her wand that she'd been using to control the chopping vegetables.

"Now you listen here Ronald; I am a fit woman, fit enough to be Sarabella's mother. I asked Sarabella why she didn't tell anyone about her Mum and do you know what she told me? She told me she didn't want anyone to know because she didn't want them to take her away. She told me that she thought that some how; her Mum was coming back for her. The authorities don't need to find out about this! Look at how messy it was with May. A trial would only make a mess; that poor girl does not need to be reminded that her mother _did herself in _every two seconds of the day! I'm sure she thinks about it enough!" Ron was ready to give his closing speech when the doorbell rung.

"I'll get it," he sighed, scraping his feet in a child like manner, all the way to the door.

He pulled it open to see an older, sharper looking version of Draco Malfoy, standing on the threshold.

"I can see words have departed you Weasley, so I'll make this easy for you. I'm here to collect Bell."

"Who is it Ronald?" Mrs. Weasley nearly dropped her wand when she realised who it was at the door.

"Draco Malfoy?"

"May I come in?" He answered, softening his voice, obviously trying to appeal to Mrs. Weasley's better side.

"Of course." When they were seated at the table Mrs. Weasley spoke.

"Now what can I do for you Mr. Malfoy."

"Please, call me Draco."

"Draco then."

"I'm here to pick up Sarabella."

"On what grounds?" Ron shouted, his temper rising.

Draco stayed calm, his fingers entwined on the tabletop.

"I am her father."

"Wait, you and Pansy got together?"

"I don't see that that is any of your business Weasley, but if you must know, no we did not. Sarabella was an unexpected… surprise."

Mrs. Weasley looked apprehensive.

"If she is your daughter, why did you wait nearly three weeks before coming to collect her?"

"If you must know, she hasn't actually met me yet. Her mother and I tried joint custody when she was younger but it was too complicated. Her mother could not accept the fact that I have a family of my own, and was in no way interested in an intimate relationship with her, I just wanted a part in my little girl's life." Ron found his jaw hanging open. This was not Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was cruel and spiteful and a git, he couldn't give a shit about a nine-year-old girl, whether she was his daughter or not.

"Why didn't you get in contact with her earlier?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking at the innocent girl who laughed at her, Molly's, husband's many funny faces, reminding her all too much of Ginny at that age.

"We sorted out a one-week-on, one-week-off system but when I went to pick her up, the house was empty. I just got a lead, and then I found your note at the address I was given. Thank you so much." Draco stood. "Can I please see her?"

Mrs. Weasley nodded and led him into the lounge room.

"Molly, what's he doing here?" Arthur asked.

"I'll tell you later Arthur."

"Who's that Molly?" Sarabella asked, a smile still on her face from Mr. Weasley's last face.

Draco looked in awe at the little girl.

"My name's Draco. I'm your father Sarabella." Bell took one look at Draco and ran out the back door.

Mrs. Weasley looked at Draco remorsefully.

"This must be an awful lot for a nine-year-old to take in. Just give her time. I'll go and talk to her."

Mrs. Weasley found Sarabella sitting on the garden bed wall.

"What's wrong Bella? Aren't you happy that you know who your dad is?"

"It's not that, really. It's just… It was Mum and me for so long. I always thought that my dad would come and Mum wouldn't be sad anymore, but he was too late."

Mrs. Weasley pulled Sarabella into a hug.

"He really wants to meet you… will you come inside?"

Sarabella nodded and held Mrs. Weasley's hand, leading her into the house.

Draco and Mr. and Misses Weasley compromised that Bell could see Draco in the day until she got to grips with everything, then she could decide if she wanted to go and live with him, or stay with the Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley insisted that Draco understand that it may take a long time, but he seemed more than happy to accept anything they said, as long as it meant he could see his daughter.

* * *

**6****th**** September 2010**

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, Lavita, Percy, Penelope, George, Angelina, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Harry all sat around the burrow's faded dining table, wine glasses in their hands.

"Well," Mrs. Weasley slurred slightly. "This is fantastic news! And I would like to propose a toast!"

The children all sat, boisterous, playing in the adjoining lounge room.

"Awwww, Mum, sit down, you're drunk!" Ginny laughed, moving her glass to quickly as Hermione tried to fill it up, sloshing red wine onto the table cloth.

"I am not drunk Ginerva! I don't have _time_ to be drunk! Not with you lot!" Bill and Charlie injected their comments loudly and cheerfully.

"What?" Mrs. Weasley insisted, getting in a huff. "It's my grandson's six month anniversary into remission and _I want to make a toast!_"

Ron laughed louder than necessary. "Alright Mum, go ahead!"

Mrs. Weasley pushed her chair out further and picked up her glass.

"First of all, I want to thank everyone here from taking time off to visit your poor mother, who has been forgotten amongst your busy lives." Everyone groaned.

"Mum, skip the sap story!" George barked.

"Oh shush George!" She snapped. "As I was saying… Thank you, all of you. It's a shame one family member is missing; bless you Fred." Everyone sat silence for a second, paying their respects.

"But let's not dim the evening! This is a celebration! Today, on the 6th of September, 2010, is the _six month_ anniversary of the remission of my favourite gold-ringleted grandson Kael. Also, a toast to Lily, whose blood saved him, to James; who torments him and who's humorous comments always made him laugh, and to Albus, whom's bright light shone through in the dark hearts of us all whist going through the ordeal. May Kael's life be long and filled with many unruly events! My daughter needs a dose of her own medicine when it comes to raising children!" Ginny shook her head and everyone stood and leaned over the table to toast glasses, sloshing wine across the table.

**I thought I'd add a happy chapter! Well, poor Sarabella hey? But at least she has a family now… hopefully she fits in with Scorpius and Draco's wife!**

**Aren't you just SOOO glad the cancer's gone? Lol, I thought you would be!**

**PLEASE REVIEW!! Please oh please!! I got ONE review for the last TWO chapters so you're lucky I'm updating at all! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HIT THE LITTLE 'GO' BUTTON IN THE BOTTOM LEFT HAND CORNER!!**


	26. Accidental Magic

_**Chapter 26: **__Accidental Magic_

**January 13****th**** 2013**

"Happy birthday my big boy!" Mrs. Weasley ravished James in kisses, the same thing she did every year.

"Nanna, don't!" James struggled to get away but Mrs. Weasley, like every other year, just held him tighter.

"So how old are you now James? You have to be five by now." George scuffed up Teddy's hair at this cheeky remark.

"Nu-uh! I'm eight now!" James defended himself.

"Only three years to go until Hogwarts!" James jumped up.

"Yeah, only one for me."

"Nu-uh Kael! You're not even nine yet!" Lily looked up from where she sat, doing a puzzle.

"Awww, I won't forget you when I go Lily." Harry and Ginny sat, holding hands, and smiled at Lily.

She had just learnt, the previous morning, how to tie her shoelaces. Kael, like he had promised whilst in the hospital in what seemed like forever ago, had taught her all by himself.

"So, you two gonna have anymore?" Seamus asked, bouncing Jesanna on his knee.

"Pfft, yeah right! As if four isn't enough!" Ginny laughed.

"What about you Seamus, you've only got two."

Seamus shook his head and Jesanna clambered off of his knee to go and play. "Shesaris is enough of a handful as it is! She's just discovered make-up. And Jesanna," Seamus stood and grabbed the hand of his six-year-old, and sat her with Lily, telling her to leave the fireplace alone. "She gets into anything!"

Harry and Ginny laughed, watching Shesaris sit, looking rather disgusted as the children played on the floor.

"Don't you want to play with them Shesaris?" Ginny asked.

"No, I don't want to play with the little kids! I want to play with the BIG kids!" She wined.

Ginny and Harry looked to Seamus.

"She's just sour because she thought Victoire was going to be here. When I told her she was at Hogwarts she chucked a wobbly. She's only got until September to wait, but she won't take that for an answer. She wants to go _now_. Then she got mad because Josef isn't due to start Hogwarts until _next year_ but he gets to _live_ at the school with Percy and Penelope. It was all very dramatised really." The lounge room laughed and Shesaris skulked out of the room and went outside.

"I hope we're not too late!" a man's voice called and Charlie, Lavita and May appeared in the lounge room, quickly followed by Bill, Fleur and Mariah.

"Now Mariah, pleez don't geet too dirty! Zat eez a very pretty dress." Fleur asked her daughter. "Yes Mother." Mariah sighed, defiantly having taken more to Bill's side when it came to the French accent.

"Hey May," May found Kael's face in amongst the children.

"You're it!" He shouted, running across the lounge room and out the door.

May looked around, pounced on Mariah, and ran out the door shouting: "Mariah's it now!"

Mariah ran after them and James followed.

"I want to play! It's my birthday! Can I play Kael? You better not say no!"

Dean rocked up at the back door with Jared and Sara.

"Sorry I'm late, I came around the back way." Sara engaged herself in the game of Chasey as Shesaris eyed Jared hopefully from the garden bed wall where she sat.

Lily, Hugo and Jesanna sat, colouring, on the mat.

"Look Mum! It's a unicorn!" Lily held up her picture.

Rose and Albus sat in a corner reading two separate, but similar, copies of Jack Twist.

"I wonder where Gabe and Fergus are…" George wondered aloud.

As he said it bright whizzing things flew into the lounge room, sending the littlins screaming.

"What is that?" Bianca—Dean's wife—shouted over the noise.

George flicked his wand and the things seised to make noise, dropping to the floor.

"Weasley Wizard Wheezes… GABE! FERGUS! Get in here now." The boys appeared around the corner of the patio.

Wide grins on their faces they asked in unison, "Yes dad?"

"And these are?" George asked, holding up one of the Wheezes.

"Well geez Dad," Gabe sighed.

"You should know!" Fergus exclaimed.

"You invented them!"

"I'm aware of what they are, what I want to know is _how_ you got them, and _what_ they're doing here…"

The boys looked at each other, then explanations started spilling out of them left right and center.

"That's enough boys. Now go and behave yourselves, I don't want to see any of the joke shop contents again today thankyou." Angelina said and the boys left.

George looked after them, unable to sustain his grin.

* * *

**27****th**** March 2014**

"Alright, dig in." In a frantic of eight arms, everyone reached across the table to dish on their plates with what they wanted.

"Here, let me help you." Albus offered Lily help with the heavy mashed potato pot.

"Thanks Alby."

The front door swing open and Harry stepped in out of the rain.

"Hello Gang! Sorry I'm late!" He kissed his wife on the cheek and sat in his respected seat.

"James… do you really think that you're going to eat all of that?" He asked, shaking his head at the massive pile of chicken wings on James' plate.

"Dad? Why does Alby only eat yucky vegetables?" Lily asked, shovelling mashed potato into her mouth.

"Albus is a vegetarian, that means he doesn't eat meat." Harry explained, wishing he hadn't allowed Albus to borrow the animal farming book from the library.

"Why not? Doesn't he like it?"

"Something like that." Replied Harry, stealing a chicken wing from James' plate.

"Lily, do you know where meat comes from?" Albus asked, but before Harry could stop him James had answered.

"Cow, chicken, baby sheep."

"Meat is baby sheep?!" Lily dropped her chicken wing and looked up, wide-eyed in astonishment, at her mother and father, her fingers still sticky from the marinate.

"I'm eating a baby SHEEP?!"

"Actually," injected Albus, "that's chicken."

Lily let out an ear-piercing scream and ran to her room.

Ginny sighed, standing.

"I'll go and talk to her."

"Nice one geniuses… as if you'd tell a six-year-old that meat is from animals. Next thing you know she won't be eating vegetables either, thinking that ripping them from the ground hurts them." Kael sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Well how was I supposed to know she'd chuck a hissy fit? Albus started it!"

"ME?! You're the one who told her where it came from! I wasn't going to!"

"Oh Yeah? Bet you would have! And _you_ brought it up!"

"BOYS! Enough." Harry hushed, but he had to admit that, even when they were arguing, he loved how boisterous his family was. Ten times better than any family he, Harry, had ever had.

"Kael, be nice please."

"Me?!" There were a few seconds quiet whilst Kael fumed and then the mashed potato exploded, splattering around the dining room…

"Who was that?" Harry asked, looking at his sons.

"Um Dad… I think that was me." Kael said, wiping his face with the napkin.

Harry was unable to stop himself from smiling… his son's first incident of accidental magic.

**Well Well!!** **There you have it!!**

**Please, I want Reviews…**

**You guys know my rules! I want three before I update…**


	27. Invitations and Mudblood Lovers

_**Chapter 27: **__Invitations and Mudblood lovers_

**30****th**** July 2013**

Mrs. Weasley stood at the kitchen table, the daily mail in her hand. There was one, a red envelope, which had been delivered by a hawk like bird.

It had Molly and Arthur's names on it in very prudent, cursive handwriting.

Molly opened it more carefully than she would any other letter, and she read the contents.

_Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,  
Sarabella has informed me that she would like you both to attend her thirteenth birthday party at the Malfoy Mansion on the first of August. She has asked that I send the invitations for the children of your son's to you. I have already attained the addresses of your youngest daughter and son, so I will send their invitations direct. Instructions on the route to our home are at the bottom of this letter. Formal dress is preferable.  
I sincerely hope that you can attend,  
Draco Malfoy._

Mrs. Weasley read the letter again. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to believe that Draco, or any other Malfoy for that matter, would ever _'sincerely hope that they could attend.'_ She scanned the letter a third time before folding it neatly and placing it on the table with the rest of the letters.

It only took her a second before she had decided to attend the party. This was Sarabella's thirteenth birthday and Molly was not going to stop the fact that she, Bell, lived with the Malfoy's, stop her from attending.

Mrs. Weasley smiled at the handwriting on the other four letters on the table. They had the names Bill, Charlie, Percy and George written on them in Sarabella's unmistakeable scrawl. The same scrawl that wrote:

_'Thank you for looking after me Aunt Molly and Uncle Arthur.  
I will miss you, love Bell.'_

On a letter that hung on the fridge. It had a picture of three stick figures. One, a plump looking figure with orange ringlets and an orange and green polka dotted dress who was unmistakeably meant to be Molly, stood on the right. On the other side stood a tall balding figure with brown chequered pants and a purple t-shirt resembling Arthur surprisingly well.

In the middle stood a little girl with platted black ponytails and a grin that stretched from one side of her circular head, all the way to the other. She wore a navy blue dress and held hands with the other two figures.

Mrs. Weasley laughed, wiping a lone tear away from her eye.

* * *

**31st July 2013**

"Come on Hermione, Rose is six years younger than Sarabella. I'm sure there will be plenty of thirteen-year-olds for her to play with. Rose will probably get left out anyway!"

"Honestly Ronald! Albus received an invite and so did Dean's little girl Sara. So stop being such a baby, it's a nice gesture." Hermione made her way down the hall to Hugo's room and Ron followed.

"Nice gesture? The letter said: _to my utmost SURPRISE, Sarabella has requested the company of your daughter and son at her thirteenth birthday party._ Did you read that bit? _Utmost SURPRISE_. That doesn't sound very hospitable to me!"

Hermione placed the toys she had collected off of the floor, onto the shelves mounted on the wall.

"Firstly Ron, congratulations on using the word hospitable in the right place, secondly; this is Bell's big day. The least we can do is show up for her party."

Ron crossed his arms. "Fine, but I'm not going to act as though I want to be there!"

"Fine, act like a child, see if I care." Hermione mumbled as she placed the remainder of the toys in their place.

* * *

**30th July 2013**

"_Utmost SURPRISE_ hey?" Ginny asked, gazing down at the letter.

"That's what is says." Harry pushed his glasses up his nose as he read the letter.

"They'll probably have a party for us Mudbloods and Mudblood lovers and a pure-blood party later." Harry shook his head, wondering how Bell could possibly have lived in that house for two whole years. It had been so cold and dreary the last time Harry went.

"I wish I was turning thirteen," sighed Kael, entering the lounge room, looking up from his Tetris game.

"But you're barely eleven Kael! You leave for Hogwarts in one month and two days!" Ginny proclaimed, hoping that Kael hadn't heard her use the M-word.

"Yeah, but then I would have already been at Hogwarts for two years and I'd know how to do spells and stuff." He said.

"Well be lucky you actually get to go!" James sulked, throwing himself down on the sofa. "I have two whole years to wait!"

Albus walked into the lounge room, a book in his hands. "It'll go fastly James." He said.

"'Fastly' isn't a word Albus," corrected Kael, not bothering to look up from his Tetris game. "The word you were looking for is fast."

"Where's Lil?" Harry asked, realising that she was the only one missing this family congregation.

"In her room playing dolls with Jesanna." Albus replied. "Thank gosh I get to sleep in your study, Dad."

"It's not my study anymore Alby, it's your room."

This was another reason for James to sulk.

"Why does he get his own room?" He'd protested.

"Because he had to share with Lily, who's a girl, for the first six years, and because he needs the built in book case, it's the only thing big enough to fit all of his books."

"And what about Lily?"

"She's the girl in the family, she needs her privacy."

"What? So Albus get's his own room because he's a book worm and Lily gets hers because she's a _girl_?"

"Enough James. Look, you can put up plaster board barriers in yours and Kael's room if you'd like, it's over twice the size of Alby's room."

* * *

**1st August 2013**

Bill and Charlie had convinced Percy to take Victoire, Mariah and May along to Sarabella's party, as well as his own children.

"This is a family feud we've put up for far too long Perce, if I see that Malfoy kid, no matter how much he's changed, I'm going to knock his block off. You're really very superficial, you'll fit in great."

George decided that Teddy could go if Hermione and Ron would take him, but the Malfoy's were better off having not had a run in with Gabe and Fergus.

"The Malfoy's house, I'm suspecting, will be immaculate. They won't be able to help themselves from making a mess. Trust me, Fred and I used to be them." George had told his youngest brother.

So Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, stood on the threshold of the Malfoy's Mansion, Teddy, Kael, James, Albus and Rose in tow.

Ginny and Hermione decided that Hugo and Lily were too young for a thirteenth, so they went to Seamus and Lavendar's house to play with Jesanna instead.

"Lucky," Ron had mumbled when Hermione had dropped them off.

Ginny raised her fist and knocked on the door, but was greeted only by the aching of her knuckles. "Ahhhww. That's a thick door!"

Hermione picked up the knocker and used that. This time the wood made a sound as the brass knocker hit against it.

The door opened almost instantaneously, revealing a rugged looking house elf.

"Oh no…" Ron muttered.

"Oh, hello, what's your name?"

The house elf just looked prudently at Hermione.

"Come on Hermione," Ron pushed Hermione past the house elf.

"What's that?" James whispered.

"That's a house elf, I've read about those." Albus whispered as they passed the wrinkled elf.

"The children are in the fourth foyer." He announced grimly after them, using both hands to shut the heavy door.

"Where the bloody hell is that?" Ron growled to himself in a low voice.

"Ronald, language." Hermione reprimanded as Albus and Rose gasped.

The Weasleys and the Potters followed the sound of children's laughter—which they took as a good sign—until they came to the opening of a huge room.

"This has to be as big as the entire bottom floor of the Burrow." Ron let out a low whistle.

"Kael! James!" Ginny called as the boys ran into the ballroom, but they disappeared into the crowd of children. Decorations hung from the twenty foot high ceiling and colours and patterns playing across the walls.

Balloons hung from the corners and floated in mid air. Food platters levitated around the room and there were at least ten different tables full of children's activities, as well as one that contained the biggest pile of presents Harry had ever seen, even bigger than Dudley's.

"You can go and play now." Hermione told Teddy, Rose and Albus." Teddy spotted Victoire and jogged away but Albus and Rose only took a few steps forward, standing frozen in what Harry suspected was awe or overwhelming.

"Hello, My name's Scorpius Malfoy, this is my half sisters' party." A small boy with an undeniable resemblance to Draco Malfoy—of about seven or eight years of age—stepped in front of Albus and Rose. Albus shook his hand and when Rose held out hers Scorpius lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

"Pleasure."

Hermione felt Ron's hand squeeze against hers and he took a step forward.

"Ronald." Hermione warned, pulling him back. "They're only children, it's only a game," but Ron growled.

"The adults are assembled in the ballroom across the hall, you may join them if you wish." Said a straight-backed elf, different to the one who had opened the door.

Ginny and Harry herded them away as Ron tried to turn back to Rose and Hermione attempted to ask the house-elf's name.

"I'm Albus Potter and this is Rose Weasley." Albus introduced.

Scorpius dropped Rose's hand, causing the blush on her cheeks to drop also.

"Potter? Weasley? My mother has told me about you lot."

"Yeah?" Albus asked, straightening his back and pushing his glasses up his nose. He had been reading about the rise and fall of some evil wizard called Vodemork or Voldeemur, or something like that. He didn't understand much of it, but he understood when the book referred to his father as a hero. Even though he couldn't really imagine his father fighting anyone.

"Yes, my mother says that you're Mudblood lovers."

Rose gasped.

"That's not a very nice thing to say!" she proclaimed.

Albus stood, still in shock.

"Well it's what my mother said, and she's _always_ right. Merlin, I'd hate to be a Mudblood lover. What a disgrace, and I actually kind of liked you."

Rose clenched her fist, stepped forward and drilled it into Scorpius Malfoy's face; leaving him to run away in tears, blood pouring from his nose.

"We're going to get in trouble for that aren't we Rosie?" Albus finally asked, not moving an inch.

Rose turned to him, a remorseful look on her face.

"Yes Alby," Rose said, looking regretful, "we're going to get in _big_ trouble for that."

**Lol, there you have it! Wasn't that a great chapter?**

**Please Review! That was an extra long chapter! So PLEASE!!**

**Sarah xx**


	28. Pink and Blue

_**Chapter 28: **__Pink and Blue_

**1****st**** August 2013**

"ROSE WEASLEY!" Hermione stormed into the ballroom, her face contorted with rage.

"Uh oh." Rose whispered to Albus, not moving an inch.

Mrs. Malfoy, who Albus recognised by her similarities to Scorpius, stormed after her, carrying her son. Scorpius continued to cry, although his nose had stopped bleeding, he had blood all over his white shirt.

"Don't you walk away from me; I was talking to you! LOOK AT ME YOU DIRTY MUDBLOOD!" By this time Hermione had just about reached where Rose stood, rooted to the spot.

She whirled around in a flash.

"_WHAT _did you call me?" she boomed.

"You heard me! Now show some respect to your superiors, I would have thought a Mudblood like yourself would have learnt that by now…"

Hermione's fist connected with the woman's face and she staggered backwards.

"Don't you DARE come anywhere near my children or my family EVER again!" She raged.

Hermione swung around and grabbed the hands of Albus and Rose and pulled them away, out of the room and then out of the house.

Ron, Harry and Ginny rushed after her as she left the house.

"Ronald, you tell your mother and father. I'm taking Rose home." Hermione let go of Albus' hand and disapparated.

Harry turned back to the house to go and retrieve the remainder of his children, but Mr and Mrs. Weasley and Percy were heading towards the door, led by the door house-elf and followed by Kael and James and every other Weasley whom had been invited to the party.

"Let's go home," Harry sighed, directing Kael, James and Albus towards the car.

* * *

"Mum…" Hermione let go of Rose's hand and she staggered, falling over. 

"Just go to your room Rose." Hermione ordered, as she held the door open.

Rose crept past her mother and ran down the hall.

Hermione dropped into her armchair and crossed her legs under her bum.

She sat there; shaking with anger, face in her hands, until she heard Ginny's voice.

"Hermione?"

"What am I going to do Ginny? I just punched a woman in the face in front of my seven-year-old… what type of example am I setting here?"

Ginny smirked a little. "It was a good punch though…"

Hermione looked up and shook her head. "This is serious."

"Sorry… but look Hermione. She called you the worst word in the book. You had a right to react like you did."

Hermione shook her head. "How am I supposed to punish Rose for punching Scorpius when I did the same to his mother?"

"Don't, just tell her that what you did was wrong and what she did was wrong and that you aren't supposed to fight back with your fists. That it was a stupid thing to do and that if you hadn't of been distracted, you would have been smart and used your wits, not your… fists." Ginny laughed and Hermione wiped her face free of frustration tears.

"Thanks Ginny."

Ginny gave Hermione a quick hug.

"Should we let Ron in now?"

Hermione laughed and nodded.

Ginny flicked her wand at the door and it swung open.

"Dad? Why do we have to wait outside?" Whined Hugo.

Hermione laughed and Ron and Hugo entered the house.

* * *

**25****th**** August 2013**

"Come on Kael, or we'll get there in the middle of the rush hour." Ginny stood at the door.

"Alright, so I'll meet you at the family restaurant on Johnson Street for lunch at one-thirty once I've finished getting Kael's things, ok?" Harry nodded, looking up from where James and Lily clambered on him on the floor.

"Hey Dad! Did you know a sea turtle can live up to 126 years!" Announced Albus excitedly.

"Kael!" Ginny yelled over the noise.

"Coming!" Came Kael's reply.

"Ok, this may feel a little weird." Ginny told Kael as they entered the back yard.

"Mum, the car's out the front…"

"I know that… We're going to apparate so that your father can take the car. Now hold onto my hand tight."

There was a crack and within a few seconds Ginny and Kael landed in a small pub.

Ginny lifted her arm, preventing Kael from falling over.

"Are you ok?" Ginny looked down at Kael.

However, instead of words, Kael bent over and spewed all over the hard timber wood floors.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and nodded. "That's better."

"Oh dear, let me get that." Tom, the old bar tender, flicked his wand and a mop and bucket sped over to the mess and begun to clean it.

"Sorry." Kael muttered.

"Not to worry." Came Tom's reply. Ginny smiled at him and lead Kael out to the back of the pub.

She pulled out her wand and soon the bricks folded back to reveal a buzz of people scurrying down a brightly lit street.

"What is this place?" Asked Kael, eyes wide.

"Kael… this is Diagon Alley."

* * *

After getting his robes fitted it was time for Kael to get his books.

"Here, pass me your list. I'll go and get your schoolbooks; you can look for a book for the train trip… although—if I can remember correctly—the train trip is the most boisterous of all." Ginny gazed, glassy eyed for a second, before shaking herself out of her thoughts. "I'll come and find you later."

Kael set off in the other direction and soon found himself entangled with a shelf of books in the Fiction section.

He lent forward, looking intensely at the titles of the books, when he has bumped and went face first into the bookshelf.

"Oh my! I'm so sorry!" Two girls stood over Kael. Both identical; except for the fact that one had short pink hair, and the other sky blue hair that was braided in two plats and hung over her shoulders, all the way to her hips.

Kael stood up, feeling rather intimidated on the floor.

"Well I'm outta here Alice, if I have to look at another book I'm going to be sick. I'll meet you at Florean's. Nice to _bump into you_." The pink haired girl flashed her blue braces at Kael and turned around.

"Alright Tess. Sorry about that," the blue haired girl smiled, turning back to Kael, baring her pink braces.

Kael found himself laughing.

"What is it?" The girl asked; sounding demoralized.

"Oh, no, I wasn't laughing at you. Just, your sister and you have matched your braces with the other's hair."

The girl laughed lightly. "Yeah, we did it a while ago."

Kael stood up straight, "No, it's cool. It's very charismatic of you both."

The girl smiled and stuck out her hand. "I'm Alice by the way. That was my sister Teresa."

"Cool…I'm Kael." There was a slight awkwardness in which Kael rocked back and fourth on his heels, avoiding Alice's eye.

"So… Is that hint of an Australian accent?"

Alice's eyes lit up. "Yes. My sister and I were born in Australia. My parents were actually on the road when my mum had us… We were heading for a place in the Northern Territory called Alice Springs, to the hospital. My Mum went into labour with us in a place called Finke. Dad drove as fast as he could but my sister arrived as we got to Santa Teresa and me as we just got into Alice Springs… It's a pretty cool story when you think about it."

Kael laughed. "Yeah, It is when you think that I was born in a boring room in Saint Mungo's."

Alice laughed, "I guess you can say that."

Both turned back to the book shelf.

"Kael Honey, We're leaving now… Why hello." Ginny smiled as she realised Kael was showing a book to a girl with light blue hair.

"Hello. Are you Kael's mother?"

"Yes, I am. My name is Ginny Potter."

Alice held out her hand and shook Ginny's.

"I'm Alice Stanford… Do you mind; is that Potter as in _Harry_ Potter?"

Ginny smiled, surprised at the knowledge of this young girl.

"Yes, it is. Harry is my husband."

"Wow," Alice beamed, shaking Ginny's hand more energetically. "I've read so much about you."

Ginny laughed. "It's a pleasure to meet you Alice, but Kael has to go now, we need to get his wand and the rest of his Hogwarts' supplies."

Alice released Ginny's hand.

"Ok, well I guess, in that case, I'll see you at Hogwarts… Bye Kael."

Kael waved, grabbed the book he'd chosen, and made his way to the counter with his mother.

"She was very pretty Kael," Ginny smiled whilst paying for the book.

"Mum, shhh! She's still over there!" Kael pulled his mother from the store once she'd paid for his book.

"Do you like her Hun?"

"Mum, we just met… Can you please drop it?"

Ginny laughed. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, but you're embarrassing me… can we just go and get my wand, _please?_"

Ginny laughed and messed up Kael's already untamed hair.

"Alright then."

"And Mum?"

"Hmmm?"

"Please don't tell Dad… I'll never hear the end of it if you do…"

**There you go… That was rather cute wasn't it? **

**Well I got descriptions to fill out… I've just invented two new characters…**

**Please REVIEW!**

**Sarah xx**


	29. Hogwarts

_**Chapter 29: **__Hogwarts_

**1****st**** September 2014**

"Are you sure about this? Because if I splat against that wall, I'll…"

"Don't worry! Look, I'll go first." Teddy took a run up and plunged through the brick barrier between platforms 9 and 10.

"Ok Kael, your go." Harry urged.

"Hold on Hookie," Kael whispered to his owl and he ran at the wall.

_CRASH!_

Kael opened his eyes to see that he'd run through the wall and was now on a completely different platform. A gold imprinted sign hanging high on the wall indicated that it was platform 9 and ¾.

Kael rolled off of his back and sat up, realising that he must of run too far and collided with someone else's cart.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry!"

Kael turned around to see Alice picking herself up off of the ground. The first thing he noticed was that she was already in her Hogwarts robes.

"Alice."

Alice stood and turned around.

"Kaleb, It's you."

Kael's smile faltered slightly.

"Actually, It's Kael."

Alice laughed, "oh sorry, I'm terrible at names."

"Ali, have you seen… what happened to you?" Teresa sauntered up to where Kael and Alice stood, dusting themselves off. Her trunk was graphitised with stickers that said things such as: "Fall Out Boy," "The Used," and "My Chemical Romance." All of which Kael had absolutely _no idea_ the meaning of.

A small white cat sat on top of the trunk. The socks of its feet and the tips of its fluffy ears and tail were pink—the same shade as Teresa's hair.

"Oh, sorry Tia. Kael came through the barrier and I'd stopped too close to the wall on the other side."

Kael picked up Hookie's cage and put it back on his trolley.

"Kael, what happened?" Ginny asked, as she ran through the barrier.

"Nothing Mum. Look, Grandma Weasley's waving at you." Sure enough, Mrs. Weasley was waving her daughter over to where she stood with her two eldest sons, their wives and eldest children.

Harry, James, Albus and Lily ran through the barrier, all holding hands.

James' eyes bulged as he looked around.

"WOW!"

"Alright, just come over once you've finished talking." Ginny smiled and took Harry's hand, pulling him away as he asked. "Who are the girls?"

"So Kael-ub. This your first year?" Teresa asked.

"Um, yeah. And it's actually just Kael…"

Teresa smirked. "I'm Tia, you can call me Tia."

Kael smiled politely, like his mother had told him to when he didn't know what to say.

"Well, I just spotted Ranessa and Macorbious, I'll catch you later. Bye Kael-ub."

She waved behind her and pushed her trolley towards a dark skinned girl with corn rowed hair who Kael remembered from a birthday party when he was younger.

"Is your sister always so-"

"Sharp? Spirited? Garrulous?"

"-Loquacious."

Alice caught herself in a fit of laughter.

"Loquacious… I'll have to remember that."

Kael laughed in return.

"My parents aren't here, so I don't have to say goodbye to anyone. Would you like to get an compartment with me, you can put your trunk in there, and then you can go and say goodbye to your family."

Kael nodded. This has to have been one of Alice's longest sentences so far.

They found a compartment easily, the time being only twenty to eleven.

As the door slid shut behind Kael he realised that there was a meowing coming from behind it.

"Oh, I forgot Tahlma was walking." Alice opened the door and a cat ambled into the compartment, identical to that of her sister. Only this cat's frosting was sky blue.

"Cute cat." Smiled Kael.

"Thanks. She came from the same litter of cats as Sheeba, Tia's cat."

Kael was about to explain how he came to own Hookie, his owl, when Mrs. Weasley's plump face appeared at the window.

"Kael, there you are! Come out here and say goodbye."

"I'll be back soon." Kael smiled at Alice and left the compartment.

Once he was back on the platform Mrs. Weasley hugged him so hard that he felt his bones creak.

"Aww, we're going to miss you Kael, honey."

Kael tried to smile, but he could see Alice reading her book, looking up at him occasionally and smiling as she turned back to her book.

"Be good ok?" Ginny told Kael as she gave him a hug.

"Have fun, and don't break _too many_ rules." Harry smiled as he hugged his son, looking through the window at Alice.

"Dad! She can see you out of the corner of her eye!"

"What? I'm just looking. She's very pretty Kael."

Kael elbowed his dad, "Shush Dad!"

"Don't come back too soon… I get a room all to myself while you're gone." James smiled as Kael approached him to say goodbye. Kael pulled his brother into a headlock and gave him a noogie. "Don't touch my stuff James." He laughed as James struggled.

"I imaging you'll have an excellent time Kael." Smiled Albus.

"Thanks Alby, and look after Lily whilst I'm gone."

"I will."

Then Kael came to Lily, whose eyes were swelling with tears.

"Hey…" Kael leant over and hugged his sister.

"I'm going to miss you Kael." She sniffled into his shoulder.

"It's ok Lily. I'll see you at Christmas…" She nodded slowly, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve.

"And don't learn to fly a broomstick before I get back. Remember I'm going to teach you that! When I'm Gryffindor's second first year seeker, Dad being the first."

Lily smiled and gave Kael one last hug.

Harry and Ginny stood with their youngest three children, waving as the train took off.

"Well, one down, three to go." Harry laughed as the train plunged into the tunnel and out of sight.

"Time to go home."

Harry looked down to where Albus had been tapping him on the arm.

Albus pointed to Lily, who was still facing where the train had left, tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Aww, Lil. It's ok. You'll see Kael again soon." Harry picked up his youngest child, letting her cry into his shoulder, and they set off for home.

Ginny un-locked the door and she had barely stepped into the house when the phone rang.

"Hello… uh-huh… What do you mean…? Oh…" There was a long pause.

Harry put Lily down, smoothed back her hair—planting a kiss on her forehead, telling her to go and play— and turned back to Ginny's phone conversation.

"Alright, we'll be there in a couple of hours. Thank you. Bye."

* * *

Kael sat in the compartment Alice silently reading across from him.

"Kael!" The compartment door slid open and Jared Thomas slid into the compartment.

"Hey Jared, I didn't see you on the platform." Kael looked over at Alice, who hadn't moved her eyes from her book.

"Yeah, Dad was a bit late dropping me off. Sara wanted to stay home alone but Dad said she couldn't. So there was this big drama because she's mad because she has to wait for the school term in 2018 because her birthday is in October. She was having a whinge, wondering why her birthday couldn't have been in August, because now she has to wait eleven months _after_ she turns eleven to come to Hogwarts." Kael laughed slightly, thinking of James.

"Well Lily's god mother Luna has her birthday on the 3rd of September. So three days after she came to Hogwarts, she turned twelve."

"Man that's got to suck."

Jared turned to Alice and spoke, surprising Kael that he could have noticed someone else with all of his talking.

"Hi, I'm Jared."

Alice took a few seconds before she looked up and realised she was being spoken to.

"Sorry… were you talking to me?"

"Well, yes, I was."

Alice blushed slightly and held out her hand.

"Sorry, I'm Alice Stanford." Jared took her hand and held it still for a second.

"Pleasure."

Alice blushed again and Kael felt a strange felling in the pit of his stomach.

"So Jacob, is this your first year aswell?" She asked politely.

"The name's Jared."

Alice blushed scarlet.

"Sorry. I'm terrible with names."

There was a few seconds silence before Jared spoke.

"Is that Stanford, as in _Malcolm_ _Stanford, _head of the Auror apartment at the ministry of Magic?" Jared flashed his white teeth but Alice turned away, to look out the window.

"Oh no, I'm a Muggle born."

Jared shifted slightly in his seat, giving Kael the opportunity to speak.

"So, how come your parents didn't stay to see you off?"

"Oh, they were off to Russia for a holiday. Their flight was leaving at eleven thirty, so they had to get to the airport… Are your parents _all_ magical?" Alice blushed again, hoping her question was not too personal.

Kael smiled, "My dad's mum—my grandmother—she was Muggle born. My Dad's dad came from a long line of wizards though, same with my Mum's parents."

"What's your dad's mum like at magic? Is she good?" Kael was about to tell her that he'd never known his grandmother, but it struck Alice before he had a chance to.

"Oh my gosh! It totally slipped my mind that your dad is Harry Potter… oh my, I'm so sorry. But I read that your grandparents were very brave in giving their lives to save your dad… Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry."

Kael stopped her mid rant, "Alice… it's ok. I never knew them, my Dad hardly knew them—but back to your question before. I've been told that the first Lily Potter was an exceptional witch. And besides, my auntie is a Muggle born and she got Outstanding on all but one of her OWLS and outstanding on _all _of her NEWTS. Her name's Hermione Granger-Weasley."

This sent Alice beaming. "I've read about her in a wizarding magazine. She's one of the most successful witches to ever graduate from Hogwarts."

Jared seemed to decide that he had been left out of the conversation too long.

"So what house do you think you'll end up in?" He asked Alice.

"Well, I've been reading about the houses and I wouldn't mind Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. I don't think I'm noble enough for Hufflepuff, or dedicated enough for Slytherin. But I don't think I'm very brave… Can a Muggle born be sorted into Ravenclaw? I mean, it's the smart house, but what kind of smart? Logically, or theoretically, or magically?"

Jared laughed slightly. "So what you're saying is you don't know what house you want to be in?"

"Umm… well yeah, I guess."

Jared laughed, "That's easy then. The hat will just sort you and either way, you'll be happy."

Alice turned slightly to Kael, "what if even the Sorting Hat can't decide?"

Kael opened his mouth but Jared just laughed.

"You're worrying about nothing. The hat will find you somewhere to go!"

Alice looked a little taken aback. "What house do _you _want to be in?"

"Well, Gryffindor for the brave or Slytherin for the dedicated and determined of course!"

Kael laughed, "Wow, they're extremes. But the Slytherins and Gryffindors have gotten over their differences now… I think. Seeing as Lord Voldemort is long gone and no one's seen a Death Eater in fifteen years."

Alice shook her head, correcting Kael. "Actually, that's not entirely true. Lots of families are still holding a grudge about the walk out."

"Walk out?" Jared asked, not sure what Alice meant.

"Yes, in 1998, at the beginning of the school year, the sorting hat warned all houses to put aside their grudges and unite as one. Later that year the final battle of Lord Voldemort broke out. Most of those in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw who were old enough to fight; and _all _of those old enough to fight in Gryffindor, stayed. Even a few who were younger and managed to slip past the teachers, fought… all except for the Slytherins. They all left… all of them. Oh, nope, I'm wrong. A few stayed to fight on the Death Eater's side, alongside their parents."

Jared became defensive.

"That was _ages_ ago! And look at how many people _died_ during that battle! And if my parent's were Death Eaters, which they weren't, I couldn't well fight _against _them."

"Calm down Jared. Your dad is Dean Thomas. He was a Gryffindor; he fought against the Dark Lord's followers. I'm sure Alice wasn't trying to offend you or your family…"

"Of course not!" Alice insisted.

"And anyway. Dad says that one of the bravest wizards he knew was in Slytherin, so you have nothing to worry about."

Jared seemed to relax a little at this.

"So what about you Kael, what house do you want to be sorted into?"

Kael chuckled a little and jumped up onto his seat.

"I want to be sorted into Gryffindor, where the brave stood and fought!" Kael pretended to pull out a sword from the waistband of his jeans.

"Where the students fought men well past their years in magical ability! Where my father stood, leading the army, and where my godfather fought the Dark Lord." Kael swung his imaginary sword. "Slicing the head off of Voldemort's beloved snake with Gryffindors sword, giving my dad a chance to finish off the evil lord!"

Jared and Alice cheered, beaming and laughing as Kael continued his triumphant speech, bouncing around on the compartment seat.

"And though there was death in the air, they all cheered. Applauded my father, all the past headmasters and mistresses of the _greatest school in the world,_ all applauded my father!"

A slow clap cut through the laughter and Kael swung around, falling off the compartment seat.

"Very nicely spoken." Clapped Teddy as Alice helped Kael off of the floor.

"I'm sorry Teddy." Kael spoke softly.

When his father had told him the story for the first time, Kael had shared it with everyone. But some weren't so happy to have it recounted, especially Teddy, who'd lost both of his parents in the fight.

"No, it's ok. My parents were heroes. They died whilst protecting the students and teachers alike. As far as I'm concerned, people shouldn't avoid mentioning them. They were heroes..."

Kael smiled unsurely at Teddy, unsure of an answer.

"Ted-ee!" Victoire appeared around the compartment door and looked into the compartment.

"'Av een'ee of you zeen my zizteer? I was talking to 'er an' wheen I turned around, see was gone!"

Kael shrugged.

"Come Tee-dee, we vill fine 'er!" Victoire grabbed Teddy's hand as he replied.

"Merlin, I love it when you order me around."

This sent the compartment into hysterics.

"Guys, have you seen Ickie?" Mariah poked her head into the compartment, looking skitish.

"Yeah, she already passed about three minitues ago." Kael laughed.

"Tank you!" Came Victoire's voice from down the train.

Mariah sbolted into the compartment, slamming the door shut behind her.

"She won't leave me alone! She's introducing me to all of her friends and stroking my hair like i'm a show hippogriff! At home she hardly speaks a word to me, but now I'm here she can't keep away!"

Jared, Alice and Kael laughed.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't see you there. I'm Mariah Weasley, Kael's cousin, and that was my sister Ickie Vickie."

Alice shook Mariah's hand.

"Nice to meet you Mariah. I'm Alice."

"Hey, I met your sister a few compartments down. Short pink hair, funky blue things on her teeth?"

Alice nodded.

"Yeah, she was having a rap-off with Ranessa, Macorbious Creevy was judging."

Alice laughed, "Sounds like her."

Once they had settled down Alice smiled lightly. "I've been doing some reading up on the history of magic, you know, because you grew up with it you must know a lot more than me."

Kael shrugged. "It all depends. My Dad only just told me last year about the whole rise and fall of Voldemort. I can't believe it wasn't until I was ten that I truly understood the history of my own Dad."

Alice nodded, "I've known the history of your dad since before you. I was nine when I read the Rise and Fall of Lord Voldemort. You see, I guess I'm not entirely Muggle born. My Mum's brother-in-law is a wizard. He's my auntie's husband. When Tia and I started showing signs of being magical we were actually at my Aunty and Uncle's at the time. They knew exactly what was happening. You can imagine my mother's reaction when her brother-in-law pulled out a stick of wood and started waving it around." She sighed, as though reliving a memory.

"Yeah, well Tia thought it was awesome, but my Uncle Ryan told me about pure-blood families and I wanted to get as much knowledge as I could. I don't know if you can imagine it, but it was like all of a sudden there is this whole new world, where flying is possible and magic happens like in fairy tales and I enjoyed learning about history."

"Yes, I think I understand what you're saying." Kael nodded.

"Yeah, so I just hope I've learnt enough! I really don't want to stick out among all of these wizarding families."

Kael shook his head, "Don't worry. With hair like yours, you're fitting in already."

Alice grabbed hold of the bottom of her braids and began to laugh.

Jared and Kael joined in.

"You know what? I think I'm starting to think that Gryffindor would suit me best." Jared announced.

At that moment Tahlma jumped down from the compartment rack onto Jared's lap, scaring him half to death, causing him to jump up on the compartment seat with a very girlish scream.

This only sent the compartment in an uproar of laughter, holding their ribs as they laughed.

"Um… yeah right Jared!" Kael laughed.

Eventually they all got into their robes and as they were getting close to the station Jared, Kael and Alice sat on the edge of their seats, waiting in anticipation for the train to come to a halt.

When it did Kael helped Alice get her trunk from the racks and they left the train.

"Oi! All of Yeh first years! Over 'ere!" when Kael was on the platform he looked up at Hagrid, who he had met many times in the past.

"What is that?" Squeaked Alice.

"That? He's Hagrid. He's really cool, he makes _killer _rock cakes… literally."

Tia caught up wit them and paused at their side, looking up at Hagrid's hairy face.

"Man, now _that _is awesome!"

"Hello Kael," Hagrid smiled.

"Hey Hagrid."

Hagrid lead the group of first years to the boats where Jared, Kael, Alice and Tia got a boat together.

They glided over the glassy lake, looking up in amazement at the castle.

"It's going to be a good year." Kael found himself muttering.

Alice laughed, "Yeah, it is."

Once they'd arrived at the castle the first years were organised into alphabetic order by Penelope Weasley.

"Kael?"

"Yes aunt… I mean _professor_ Weasley." Alice laughed.

"You're going to have so many people to remember you have to call Professor!" Penelope, however, did not laugh.

"Your uncle Percy want's a word. He's down the hall first door on the right."

Kael did as he was told.

He knocked on the door twice.

"Come in," came Percy's voice.

Kael entered the excruciatingly tidy room.

"Come in, sit down."

Kael did as he was told, wondering what on earth he could have possibly done wrong… _already._

There you go! Did you know that that was a 10 PAGE CHAPTER! You guys BETTER be happy! 10 PAGES! THAT'S MASSIVE!

**Well, 10 reviews would be nice… but I'll fold at five… IF THEY'RE REALLY POSSITIVE AND ENCOURAGING!**

**Sarah xx**


	30. Backwards

_**Chapter 30: **__Backwards_

**1****st**** September 2014**

"Kael, I have something to tell you…"

Kael could tell straight away that this was not good news, just by the look on his uncle's face.

"What happened? Lily isn't hurt is she? Are James and Alby ok?"

"Yes, I presume they're fine… but the thing is… I'm going to need you to go home Kael."

"What? Why? What've I done?" Kael asked, infuriated immediately, sure he'd heard wrong.

"No, no, you haven't done anything… It's just… your parents have something they need to discuss with you… As soon as it's all cleared up, you can come back. But your mother and father feel that it's best you were to go home."

"What is it? Tell me what's going on!"

"I'm not supposed to but… your routine test results have come back and there are some abnormalities… it may be nothing… but you need to go home until it's sorted out…" Percy looked up at his nephew.

Kael jumped up. "NO! I will not! I've waited for this day for eleven years! I'm going to go into the hall and get sorted into Gryffindor and become a seeker like my father was and… and…" Kael dropped back into his chair and buried his face in his hands.

"I'm terribly sorry Kael, but you have to go home. You need to make this decision with your family."

"BUT I FEEL _FINE!_ I'm fine! I am! It's been _four_ years!"

Percy shook his head slowly.

"They can't fix anything if nothing needs fixing!" Kael insisted.

"Kael, listen to me. This is a matter of: 'do you let them fix a wheel that can still continue for a while whilst it's broken, or wait until the whole wagon collapses."

"Wait! I'm not broken yet! There… decision made, now can I please go to the sorting?"

Percy sighed and folded his hands on the table.

"It's not that easy Kael… this is a decision your whole family needs to discuss and make together…"

And without realising it until it was too late.

Without meaning to.

Kael broke down and cried.

* * *

**1****st**** September 2014**

Ginny sat at the table, the shopping list on the table and a quill in her hand.

Kael would floo home soon.

Percy had sent a letter telling her that he would send him soon, that he was just calming down.

The last Ginny knew Harry was in the bedroom.

She had told him about the phone call whilst he was putting his washing away. He had collapsed in a sobbing crippled heap. Ginny had helped him onto the bed and held him whilst he sobbed; told him that Kael might not show clinical symptoms for weeks, months, a year even.

Harry had looked up at her then, and told her that eventually, no matter how long it took, it would happen.

Eventually… it would happen.

Ginny sat at the table, the shopping list on the table, and a quill in her hand.

Somehow, she began to write, and somehow, she just couldn't stop.

_It takes only thirty seconds to realise that you will be cancelling all your plans, erasing whatever you have been egotistical enough to schedule on your calendar. It takes sixty seconds to understand that even though you'd been fooled into thinking so, you do not have an ordinary life.  
It takes only ninety seconds of conversation for your best friend to realise that she will have to drag out the spare mattresses for your healthy children to sleep on when they invade on her life, on your account… and that's only if you ask how she is before breaking the news to her.  
It takes only one-hundred-and-twenty seconds for it to hit you that this is going to nearly kill your sick child, to have to come home from a school he would have loved so much.  
And then it takes only a few seconds more to realise… that there are stronger things already trying to kill him._

**_BANG._**

Kael fell out of the fireplace, his trunk falling beside him.

"Kael…" Ginny looked up from the parchment, not quite surprised at the bitter look on her son's face.

"Well? What's wrong? I've missed the sorting! Can we hurry up so that I can go back?"

Ginny opened her mouth, to tell her child that he most likely wouldn't be gong back to school today, or tomorrow… but then she stopped. Realising that to see her child's heart break in front of her eyes would kill her faster than any cancer ever could.

* * *

**13****th**** October 2014**

Harry entered the dark house. The only light came from the refrigerator, which Ginny stood in front of.

Dr. Providence had recommended that Harry and Ginny put Kael on ALL-TRANS Retinoic Acid. Unlike chemotherapies, which kill everything in their path, ATRA heads straight for chromosome 17. It uncoils the genes that have bound themselves together… and stops the mutation of Kael's chromosomes 15 and 17 from going any further.

Dr. Providence told them that this might put Kael back into remission… but also that he may form a resistance to it.

"Gin? What are you doing?"

Ginny spun around to face her husband.

"Harry… It's eleven o'clock."

Harry sighed.

"I know… Ron and I had a few drinks together."

Ginny shook her head and turned back to the refrigerator.

Harry had been avoiding home ever since Kael came home from Hogwarts.

He got up before the sun and went for a jog, then he came back to shower whilst Ginny was dropping James, Alby and Lily off at school. By the time she came back, he was gone. He worked all day and stayed late, sometimes going for another jog or, when his thoughts were particularly harsh; a drink with Ron. He avoided the house as much as he could. Avoided his sick son who spent his time in his room, not wanting to come out. Avoided his wife, who was so much stronger than he felt. Avoided his other children who were happy and healthy.

"I can't do this anymore Harry."

Harry jumped as Ginny spoke. He didn't like what she was saying.

"Do what Gin?"

Ginny looked at Harry. Seriously looked at him.

"This! This parenting all on my own thing! Don't act as if you're not purposefully avoiding home! You might as well be married to Ronald, he sure sees you more than me!"

"Ginny, you'll wake up the kids."

"Don't Harry. Don't try to get out of this! This isn't about you! This is about Kael! He doesn't even see you! What if this is his last year! What if he's gone tomorrow and you never see him again?"

"SHUT UP!"

Ginny looked shocked, but not at what was said. More at WHO had said it.

Kael stood in the doorway, his face contorted with rage.

"Stop talking like I'm going to die! I'm not going anywhere!"

"Kael, honey, I didn't mean it like that."

"Yes you did!" Kael looked from his mother to his father.

"Come on Kael, let's go back to bed."

Ginny made her way towards her son.

"We'll finish this later." She whispered to Harry, making sure she'd caught his eye, to let him know how serious she was about this.

**Sorry its out stretched… got good news! SCHOOL UNBLOCKED FANFICTION!! HOW AWESOME! So I can update more regularly now!!**

**REVIEWS PLEASE!!**

**Sarah xx**


	31. Promises

_**Chapter 31: **Promises_

**13****th**** October 2014**

Ginny kissed her son on the head.

"I'm sorry Kael. I didn't mean what I said to your Dad."

Kael rolled onto his side; away from his mother, his eyes squeezed shut.

"I know this is hard for you Honey, its not that we don't think you're strong enough, its just we're so afraid of losing you."

Kael rolled over then, realising that his mothers voice had cracked.

Ginny looked at him, her face pathetic.

"I'm so sorry Kael, I shouldn't be doing this." Ginny folded her arms on the edge of Kael's bed and put her face in them.

"Mum? Mum, its ok." Kael lifted his mother's face with his hands. Hands that Ginny had always though too big for an eleven-year-old.

He looked into her eyes so intensely that it forced a small laugh out of her.

"I'm going to be ok. I'm already feeling better. We'll wait until the 20th of October like you said, and then I'll go back to Hogwarts… just like you promised."

Ginny smiled and covered her son's hands over her cheeks.

"Just like I promised…"

Ginny sat herself on the chair across from Harry's. The only sound came from the clock that ticked slowly.

"Gin, I'm sorry-"

"Look Harry, I-"

Harry and Ginny both spoke at the same time.

"Let me go first," Harry insisted. "I'm sorry I haven't been here lately. I've been selfish, trying to pretend like nothing is wrong. It just gets a little overwhelming at times, you know? And look, I know how you must feel. I'm his father and yet, the second I hear he has cancer it's all up to you to act like his mother."

Ginny had expected many things from Harry, but this was _not_ one of them.

"I _am _his mother Harry." She hissed at him, keeping her voice as silent and deadly in the late night house.

"No, Ginny, that's not what I meant."

"Shush Harry, look, Kael is my son, as is James and Alby. I'll forgive you for not being here, and I expect you to change that, but I NEVER want to hear you refer to me as _anything_ but Kael's mother, alright?" Ginny hated the fact that she sounded like a cross between Professor McGonagall and her mother, but it was too late to rethink her tone of voice.

"I'm sorry Ginny…" Harry pleaded, feeling helpless under her gaze.

"No Harry, I don't want to hear it… Let's just go to bed."

**19****th**** October 2014**

Kael sat on his bed, the soccer ball in his hands.

It had been a present for his eleventh birthday. His grandad Weasley had found it in a toy store and thought it looked interesting… though he didn't even know what soccer was.

Kael heaved a sigh. The fifty days had sucked. He hadn't even FELT sick. Kael bounced the ball off of his wall and caught it. His mum and Dad weren't awake yet, but that was okay, because he was going back to Hogwarts tomorrow! He didn't need anything and he hadn't unpacked his trunk from the first of September. He knew he wasn't going to be home for long… fifty days was longer than he'd anticipated though.

Kael could hear James snoring and he threw the ball at the wall again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to wake James, but if he did everyone would wake up, then the day would go faster.

Kael felt something dribbling out of his nose. He sniffed but it came again, too fast to be snot.

He ran to the bathroom and pushed a tissue against his nose.

He'd gotten a nosebleed late last night too, well after his parents had gone to bed.

He knew he should tell them, but he didn't want to give his mother any reason to try and keep him home… Albus got nosebleeds during winter. This was probably just something like that.

He grabbed the toilet paper roll and headed back into his room.

Harry awoke to the sound of a bang on the wall.

Then another.

He pushed back the covers and got out of bed, heading into Kael and James' room.

Kael threw the soccer ball at the wall and James jerked a snort, then rolled over and continued his rhythmic snoring.

"Kael, stop!" Harry hissed as silently as he could.

Kael sat up, spinning around.

"Sorry Dad, I just can't sleep. I'm so restless!" Kael whispered back.

Harry smiled.

"Come on, we'll go to the park down the road and have a kick around."

Kael pulled a pair of jeans over his boxers and grabbed a pair of socks from the drawer.

"Dad?"

Harry kicked the ball to Kael. "Yes Son?"

"Why did I have to get cancer?"

Harry stood rooted.

"No, I don't mean why, I mean why me? There are billions of other people in the world… why did I get it… why did my life have to get fucked up?" Kael kicked the ball hard and it flew high and far to the right.

"Kael, I don't want to hear that word again thankyou!"

Kael sighed, "sorry."

Harry didn't tell his son that he wanted to say the exact thing.

"I don't know Kael, but what I do know is that it isn't fair. Of course it isn't. If I could take the cancer from you, I would in a heartbeat. You just have to be strong… And anyway, the ATRA is doing brilliantly. You get to go back to Hogwarts and become that brilliant first year seeker you said you would be."

Kael fumed a little. He knew his dad was only trying to make him feel better, but how the hell was this helping? He wasn't stupid! He knew that if the cancer had come back after four years, it could come back after two weeks. Hands down.

Kael looked up at his dad, ready to tell him to stop seeing the 'bright side' in things, but the expression on his fathers face was one that told Kael that if he did say what was on his mind, his dad might break down and actually cry.

And that was the one thing he'd prefer cancer over.

**Sorry it was so short! **

**Please review!**

**Next chapter will be out soon!**


	32. Back Again

**Chapter 32: **_Back Again_

**20****th**** October 2014**

"Kael, time to get up." Ginny opened the door to her son's bedroom.

Kael sat on his bed, his back turned on the door.

"I'm surprised you're still in bed; its seven o'clock, you're due at Hogwarts at lunchtime _and—_if that's not excuse enough—cartoons are on."

Kael sat still and Ginny edged round towards him.

"What's wrong Honey?"

Kael turned his head towards her. His face was deathly pale and he held a cream-coloured dishtowel to his nose. It was now virtually all red from the blood running out of his nose.

"Oh Merlin, Kael?"

Kael whimpered.

"I'm sorry, it stopped after five minutes every other time, but this time it just won't stop. I didn't want to tell you because I knew… I knew…" Kael was overcome with violent sobs and he couldn't finish his sentence.

"HARRY!" Ginny screamed down the hallway.

Albus was the first to appear.

"Oh," was all he could manage as Kael sobbed, Ginny changing his blood stained t-shirt.

"Go get your father Albus." She ordered and Kael sobbed harder.

* * *

"Clinical relapse." Dr. Providence took off his glasses and pressed his thumbs to the corners of his eyes. "I think a bone marrow transplant's the way to go."

"But a few months ago," Harry said, "you told us they were dangerous."

"They are. Fifty percent of patients who receive BMTs are cured. The other half don't survive the chemo and the radiation leading up to the transplant. Some are killed by the complications they develop after the transplant's done."

Harry looked at Ginny then, and then spoke the fear that rippled between them. "Then why would we put Kael at risk?"

"Because if you don't," Dr. Providence explained, "he _will _die."

* * *

**31****st**** October 2014**

The first time Ginny called the Muggle insurance company, they hung up on her by mistake.

Wizarding insurance companies didn't cover cancer operations that wouldn't have to be done if the child could be healed by magic.

The second time she called she waited through twenty-three minutes of classical music before reaching a customer service representative.

"Yes, hello," Ginny spoke quickly, "I called a week ago," she explained. "My son has leukemia, and needs a bone marrow transplant. The hospital explained that our insurance company has to sign off on coverage."

A bone marrow transplant can cost from 100,000 upward. Needless to say, Harry and Ginny didn't have that kind of cash lying around. But, unfortunately, just because a doctor had recommended a transplant, didn't mean the insurance company would agree.

"That sort of procedure needs a special review—" began the representative.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, that's where we were last week. I'm calling back because I haven't heard anything yet." The woman put Ginny on hold so that she could look up the file. Ginny heard a subtle click, and then the tiny voice of a recorded operator. _If you'd like to make a call . . ._

"Shit!" Ginny slammed the phone down.

Lily, vigilant, poked her head around the doorway. "You said a bad word."

"I know." Ginny picked up the receiver and hit the redial button. She wound her way through the touch-tone menu. Finally, she reached a living person. "I was disconnected. Again."

It took the rep five more minutes to take down all of the numbers and names and history Ginny had already given her predecessors. "We actually _have _reviewed your son's case," the woman said and Ginny thought:_ finally._ "Unfortunately, at this time, we don't think that the procedure is in his best interests."

Ginny felt the heat rush to her face. "Is dying?"

* * *

In preparation for the bone marrow harvest, Ginny had to give Lily ongoing growth factor shots, just like Kael had to have after infusion of Lily's blood four years ago.

Lily has been told this too, but, all she knows is that twice a day her mother has to give her a shot.

Ginny used EMLA cream, a topical anaesthetic. The cream was supposed to stop her feeling the prick of the needle, but she'd still yell. Ginny sat still after Lily had left the room to find someone to sympathise with her. She sat and wondered if it hurt as much as having your six-year-old stare you in the eye and say she hates you.

* * *

**1st November 2014**

The insurance company was willing to pay 90 percent of the costs if Kael decided on a customary lymphocyte infusion. If Ginny and Harry decided on the bone marrow transplant, the cover dropped to ten percent.

Ginny spent hours on the phone, but the stupid Muggle Company didn't seem to realise that that wasn't going to work.

"Mrs. Potter, please, if you would just listen-"

"NO! _You _listen! The doctors on your board may suggest a customary lymphocyte infusion but acute promyelocytic leukemia is not their specialty is it?"

"Mrs. Potter-"

"Because even an oncologist who graduated _last_ in his class from some hack medical school in Guam could probably tell you that donor lymphocyte infusion is _not going to work _as a cure! Three months from now, we'll be having the same discussion again! Plus, if you'd asked a doctor who had any familiarity with my son's particular disease burden, he'd tell you that repeating a treatment that's already been tried is highly unlikely to produce results in an APL patient, because they develop a resistance… Which only means your company happy to agree to throw away money, but not to spend it on the _one thing _that could save my son's life!"

There was a bubble of silence on the other end of the phone. "Mrs. Potter," the supervisor suggests, "it is my understanding that if you follow this protocol, the insurance company would have no problem paying for the transplant."

Infuriation rises inside Ginny. "Except that my son might not be alive by then to get it. We aren't talking about a car, where we can try a used part first, and if it doesn't work, get a new one shipped in. We're talking about a human being. A human being. Do you automatons there even know what that is?"

This time, Ginny expects the click when she is disconnected.

* * *

**3****rd**** November 2014**

"Kael, come on, I'm leaving!" Ginny grabbed her handbag and Harry held open the front door.

"Pfft, like you'd leave without him." James sulked, his arms crossed.

Ginny leant over the back of the couch and kissed her son on the head.

"Be good for Matilda. Hermione will be here after work." Matilda Bones was sixteen and had recently dropped out of Hogwarts. Susan Bones had agreed to look after James, Albus and Lily but she was called into work, so Matilda agreed to help out.

"I'm sure he'll be fine Mrs. Potter." Smiled Matilda, scruffing up James's messy hair. James blushed and Ginny momentarily wondered how it was possible for her son to have a crush on a girl seven years his senior.

Kael slumped around the corner, his sneakers in his arms.

"Do I really have to go?" He asked as Lily wrapped her arms around his middle.

"Yeah, he doesn't _look _sick." Lily whined.

"Yes Honey, he does have to go, but he'll be back soon, promise." Lily nodded, released her brother and placed herself on Matilda's lap.

"Now Matilda, Harry's and my mobile numbers are on the fridge, do you know how to use a phone?"

Matilda nodded, "the advantages of having a Muggle father."

Ginny nodded, hugged her three children goodbye and guided Kael out the door.


	33. Taking a Stand

4th November 2014

**Chapter 33:**___Taking a Stand_

**4****th**** November 2014**

Harry knew he had to do this. He knew that it would be hard work and an inconvenience in his life at this moment in time, but how else was he going to get the money for his son's operation?

"Well good morning Mr. Potter, how may I help you today?" Harry was used to people knowing his name. Once the chatter of his name had died down from the final battle it grew again as he was appointed Minister of Magic in 2005.

"Is Salvador Cuffe in?"

"Yes the Editor and Chief is in his office, would you like me to check if he can see you now?" Harry nodded slightly, scared to some extent by this young girls intense gaze.

She smiled her pearly-white teeth and scribbled a note on a small piece of parchment. She tapped it with her wand and it folded and zoomed under the first door on Harry's right.

A few seconds later a beefy man in emerald green robes with small, round spectacles burst out of the office.

"Harry Potter, How nice to see you. It's been a long time! I haven't seen you since you turned down my request to interview you for an article back in 1998. Wow, yes I remember that. It would have been my very first article on the job!"

Harry felt a slight pang at the memory of turning down the chubby teen who was two years his junior, for an interview. He had lived the Voldemort life for seventeen years; he didn't want to talk about it once it was over, not to mention the fact he hated the spotlight. He just wanted to live his life away from all of it.

"But no harm done! Sixteen years and look at me now, EDITOR IN CHIEF!." Salvador guided Harry into his office as he spoke.

"You know Harry, may I call you Harry?" Harry nodded as Salvador handed him a mug and filled it with coffee. "Some would say I only got this position because my father was stepping down as head, but that's not actually true! I obtained this position through determination and ruthlessness." Salvador chortled as he spooned sugar into his coffee.

"So what can I do for you Harry?" Harry cringed at the intense burning on his tongue from the coffee. He swallowed hard and placed the mug on the desk separating him and Salvador Cuffe.

"I would like to sell you my story."

Mr. Cuffe's eyebrows disappeared over the top of his head.

"Alright I'm listening. At what price might I add?"

"100,000."

If this additional information surprised Salvador he was an expert at hiding it.

"Mr. Potter that is a hefty fee, especially seeing as it is you requesting this interview."

Harry had really not wanted to go into the reasons for this, but if he didn't, he knew that his name would be placed in a phrase similar to: Minister of Magic in financial troubles?

Having Kael in a Muggle medical position, being treated at a Muggle medical facility meant that the wizarding world had no idea of his cancer. But Harry knew he had to let slip this information.

He took a deep breath and began.

"My son has cancer."

Mr. Cuffe didn't seem to pick up on the significance of this information; he merely sat and waited for more.

"Mr. Cuffe, my eldest son Kael was—err—born with a medical condition preventing his body to be healed by magical remedies." Mr. Cuffe sat up straight, suddenly intrigued.

"In 2010, when Kael was seven, he established APL, a rare cancer. What this means is that his body can not produce mature white blood cells. Therefore his body can not fight infection. Unlike they do in our world. The Muggles can not simply mature the blood cells; it isn't possible without magic… so we've had to do this the Muggle way."

Mr. Cuffe made no attempt to hide his excitement.

"He was in remission for four years, but relapsed and now needs an operation. And an operation like this will cost 100,000 Muggle dollars."

Mr.Cuffe composed his face and sat up straight. "Harry Potter, If you guarantee that the Daily Prophet has all rights to the story of your defeat of Voldemort and of your son's illness, you have yourself a deal."

Harry sighed slightly, smiled, and shook Mr. Cuffe's hand.

**Sorry that was short. I didn't have the resources I needed to finish this chapter. I just needed character notes and ages and what year they coincided with… I know, it's all over the place, but I'll sort my self out this weekend and I'll write the next chapter. It's exams week next week so I will get them done then I can relax and I'll write non-stop in the holidays I promise. I really want to finish this so I can get on with the third story in the trilogy! Sorry 'bout the delays!**

**PLEASE REVIEW!!**

**Sarah xx **


	34. Rewarded Suffering

**Chapter 34:**_Rewarded Suffering_

**5****th**** November 2014**

Lily stood at her mother's side, clinging to her hip.

"What if I don't want to anymore Mommy?" She asked, the ambulatory operating suite yawned open into a small room packed with gleaming silver instruments.

Ginny knelt down beside her youngest child. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but I know Kael is counting on you. And Daddy and me."

The nurse shows Lily how to climb up onto the table and she draws a heated blanket over the little girl.

Lily turned her head to the side and held out her hand. Ginny wrapped her own hand around her daughter's. "Don't let go," Lily whispered.

The anaesthesiologist wiped a red-tinged gauze pad around an oxygen mask. "Have you ever fallen asleep in a strawberry field?" He places the mask on Lily's face and asked her to tell him what she could smell.

She looked first to Ginny, her eyes scared. Ginny nodded and Lily turned back to the anaesthesiologist.

"Strawberries." She answered, her voice muffled by the mask.

All this time, she does not let go of Ginny's hand. Finally, her grip slackened. A nurse comes to Ginny's side. "You can give her a kiss now." So Ginny did, through her mask, she whispered a thank-you too.

She made her way out of the swinging doors and peeled off the paper hat and booties. She watched as her impossibly young daughter was rolled on her side and an impossibly long needle was lifted from a sterile tray.

Then she went upstairs to wait with Kael.

* * *

**6****th**** November 2014**

Ginny was sure she'd heard her heart rip as tears streamed down Lily's face. Harry had come to get her from Kael's room because Lily had woken up and was asking for her. Kael had been throwing up and Ginny had had her hands full. The nurse said she's watch him, but Ginny hadn't wanted to leave.

Lily was on the paediatric floor, where the rooms were not hermetically sealed. Ginny had heard Lily crying before she had even entered the room.

"It hurts Mommy," Lily had cried, reaching for Ginny.

Ginny had wrapped Lily up in her arms, "I know sweetie, I know."

Lily had asked Ginny to stay with her.

"I can't Baby, your brother's sick, I'm going to have to go back."

Lily had pulled out of her mother's arms, a rage to mature for her age, burning in her eyes.

"But _I'm _in the hospital!" She yelled; turning back into the six-year-old Ginny had given birth to all those years ago. "I'm in the hospital!"

Ginny was sure she'd heard her heart rip.

"What are they giving her for the pain?" She asked Harry.

"Very little, they don't like to over medicate kids." Ginny shook her head.

"That's ridiculous." She stood, told Lily she'd be back, and left the room, looking for something that would relieve her daughter's aches or knock her out so that she would no longer feel them.

When she arrived back Harry was fastening the clasp on a golden chain around Lily's neck. "I thought you deserved your own gift, since you were giving one to your brother," He said.

Ginny watched as Lily's face lit up. Of course she should be rewarded for donating her bone marrow. Of course she deserved recognition. But the thought of rewarding someone for their suffering, frankly, never entered Ginny's mind. The whole family had been doing it for so long.

Both Harry and Lily looked up when Ginny got to the doorway.

"Look what Daddy got me!" Lily said.

Ginny held out the plastic dosage cup, a poor second-best.

* * *

**6****th**** November 2014**

Harry brought Lily to see Kael shortly after ten o'clock. She walked slowly, like an old woman, leaning on Harry for support. The nurse helped her into a mask and gown and gloves and booties so that she could be in the same room as her brother.

Dr. Providence stood beside the IV pole, holding up the bag of marrow. Ginny pointed to it, making sure Lily saw what she was pointing at. "That is what you gave us."

Lily pulled a face, "Ewww that's gross. You can _have_ it."

"Sounds like a plan," Dr. Providence said and the rich ruby marrow began to feed into Kael's central line.

Ginny lifted Lily onto the bed. There was enough room for both of them, shoulder to shoulder.

"Did it hurt?" Kael asked

"Kind of." Lily pointed to the blood running through the plastic tubes into the slit's in Kael's chest. "Does that?"

"Not really." Kael answered, sitting up a little. "Hey Lily?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad it came from you." Kael took Lily's little hand and placed it on his chest, directly over his heart.

**Review please! Sorry about the shortness! The more reviews I get, the more pages YOU get! **

**Love, love, love,**

**Sarah xx**


	35. BLANK PAGE

**...Just a blank page…**


	36. School Supplies

**Chapter 35:**_ Going Home_

**16th November 2014**

Harry sat in front of piles of pieces of parchment. He had gotten past the details of his parents, but now he was stuck. He had had no _idea _how hard it was to write a self-biography. As he sat and thought Harry considered hiring a writer to do his work for him. All he would have to do is explain everything. The writer would put it into words.

The phone rang and Harry was pulled away from his thoughts.

"Hello?" he asked into the receiver.

"Harry, it's Ginny."

"Is everything okay?" Harry asked, panic in his voice.

James, Alby and Lily had gone to Ron and Hermione's house for Rose's birthday party. Harry and Ginny had planned to swing by an hour before it was due to finish for a coffee and a chat. Ginny had gone to see Kael in the hospital.

"Harry Honey, they said Kael could come home!" Ginny exclaimed excitedly.

Nine days after the bone-marrow transplant, Kael's white cells began to rise, indicating he was well on the way to recovery. Now, two days later, they were letting him come home.

"I'll be there as fast as I can!" Harry exclaimed and hung up the phone.

* * *

Kael checked the room for his belongings, making sure nothing was forgotten.

"Mr. Macaroni?" he asked Ginny.

She knelt down, unzipped his suitcase and pulled out the blue bear. Kael took it and gave it a squeeze.

Skinny and pale, Kael left the hospital. His jeans hardly stayed on his hips and Ginny needed to tie them with a hair-scrunchy.

Kael pulled a beanie onto his bare scalp and wrapped a scarf around his pale neck. Finally he pulled on gloves and a mask. He was the one who had to suit up for protection now.

All of the wonderful nurses said their good-byes and Harry met Kael and Ginny at the entrance to the hospital.

On the way home the Lily's CD skipped over to the next song.

"_I told the witch doctor I was in love with you  
I told the witch doctor you didn't love me too  
And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do  
He said that ..."_

Without realising it Kael began to sing softly. He was whispering the words but Ginny let out a tremendous sob and began to laugh.

"What is _that_ supposed to be Kael? You lost your voice? Sing louder!" Ginny began to sing at the top of her lungs and Harry joined in, laughing hysterically.

Harry knew they were thinking the same thing. Ginny and he were taking their son home. They could finally be a family again. A proper family.

* * *

**26th August 2015 – Notice time jump!! A whole year has gone by!!**

* * *

**26th August 2015**

Harry looked down at his children; their eyes ope wide in awe.

"This… is so _awesome_!" James smiled widely.

"Alright. I'll take Kael and James to get their new robes, books and James' cauldron then you can take James to get his wand, I'm not taking _anyone _to get a wand, _ever_ again. Not after last time."

"Hey! I didn't _mean_ to hit you in the head with that lamp!" Kael protested.

"Yes, I know, but that didn't stop me from having a headache all week."

Harry laughed, "Alright, I'll take Alby and Lil."

"I'll meet you at Ollivanders' at two o'clock." Harry gave Ginny a quick kiss and they parted ways.

* * *

"So what do you want to do first – robes or books?"

"Robes, books are boring!" James wined.

"I don't care." They walked in almost silence, Ginny calling to James to 'keep up' every time he stoped in awe staring at a window.

"Are you feeling ok Kael?"

"Yes Mum."

Ginny stopped and looked back for James, who had stopped a shop back to look at the newest Nymbus. She kneeled down in front of Kael.

"Kael are you sure?"

"Yes…" Kael groaned.

"Well then what's the mater?"

Kael turned away from his mother.

"What if I'm not as smart as the other kids Mum? What if they know?"

"Know what Kael?"

"Know about me, about the cancer. 'Cause I don't want them acting as though they can catch it!"

"Kael, you are in remission. There is no cancer anymore. There hasn't been for over a year now. And as for you not being smart enough, Dad and I have taught you everything in the curriculum. As far as all the other kids are concerned you could have just gone to a different school for the past year. There is nothing to worry about, ok?"

Kael nodded his head, "ok."

* * *

"Lily!" Harry spun around to see a blur of teenager rush towards his daughter.

"Hello Lily, Wow you're so big! How old are you now?"

Lily sighed, "I'm the same age I was when you saw me last weekend; nine."

"Hey Shesaris." Albus smiled, turning slightly pink in the cheeks.

"Hello Alby, wow, you're looking very handsome today."

Albus blushed a bright red and turned away.

"How old are you now Shesaris? Twelve?"

"Lily…" Harry scolded.

"It's ok Harry, she's just being funny. No Lily, I'm five years older than you so that would make me…" Shesaris mouthed the word fourteen.

"Yeah yeah, I get it."

Harry looked at Shesaris as she treated Lily like a four-year-old, he bit his tongue as Lily fed Shesaris cheek and was about to tell Shesaris they had to go (more to stop Lily from killing her) when Lavender appeared.

"Hello Harry, Albus, Lily."

"Hey Jesanna." Albus smiled at the girl who stood, a reasonable distance from Lavender.

"Hey, A-bee, call me Zann. I hate Jesanna, ever since I found out it meant _pure and innocent._" Lily laughed.

"Hey Zann, want to go look at the new merchandise in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?"

"Yeah, sure." Both girls looked to their parents.

"Yeah, but I want you at Ollivanders' at 1:45. I'll meet you there. We have to get there before your mother, if she finds out I let you go off by yourself she'll flip."

"Thanks Dad."

"Can I go please Mum?"

"I don't know Jesanna, I was going to take you to get some dress robes."

"I don't need any! The Ball's not on until my second year."

"Alright, but I don't want you buying any of that stuff, It's all trouble."

"Yes Mum," Zann sighed and ran off with Lily.

Harry pushed his hands deep into his pockets, watching his daughter run off.

"So… how are you Lavendar?"

"Fine thank you Harry, I must go, Shesaris needs new dress robes. Goodbye then." Harry watched Lavendar and Shesaris as they left down the alley.

"They're rather strange aren't they?" Harry laughed and tousled Albus' hair.

"Yeah, well you should have seen Lavendar when she went out with Ron." Harry and Albus continued to walk.

"Uncle Ron dated _Lavendar_?!" Albus looked shocked.

"Yep, your Aunt Hermione got really jealous too." Albus laughed, shaking his head.

"Here we are." Harry stopped in front of Florean Fortescue's ice-cream shop.

"Harry! Harry over here!" Harry looked around to see who was calling him. "You go in and pick what flavour you want and I'll be in there in a second." Albus nodded and entered the ice-creamery.

He stood at the front counter, looking in awe at all of the different colours and flavours in the display. He blinked a few times and then took his glasses off, cleaned them on the hem of his shirt, and slipped them back on, opening his eyes wide when he realised that he wasn't imaging things.

"Well look who it is." A grey haired wizard with a soft face smiled down at Albus. He was dressed in royal purple robes that sprouted great bright orange spots all over them. "Little Harry Potter, I haven't seen you in the longest time… are they new glasses?" Albus just looked up at the smiling old man in awe, what was wrong with him? He wasn't his dad, his dad was _old_.

"Hello Mr. Fortescue." Florean Fortescue adjusted his big spectacles on his nose and looked up at Harry.

"Harry? Is that you? Well I'll say; you're all grown-up!"

"This is my son Albus." Harry put a reassuring hand on Alby's shoulder.

"Hello Little Mr. Potter." Albus looked at his dad, who nodded, then looked up and beamed at Mr. Fortescue.

"Well, I better get you two some ice-creams. Chocolate nut swirl for you Harry," Harry nodded, smiling. "And what about you young Albus? What would you like?"

"I don't know," Albus squeaked out, "there are so many to choose from."

"Ahhhh." Said Florean, "Do you like chocolate chips Albus?"

"Yes."

"What about macadamia nuts?"

"Uh-huh"

"And ice-cream; all the flavours of the rainbow?"

"All but the minty ones."

"Alright then, all but the minty ones."

Harry pulled out his wallet but Florean waved it away.

"I've been giving you free ice-creams since you were your son's age, your money is not needed, nor welcome here." And before Harry could feel awkward Mr. Fortescue had rushed away to get their ice creams.

"He thought I was you." Albus whispered, pushing his glasses up his nose as they sat down.

"Yes, well Mr. Fortescue is getting old, but he's happy enough."

"He's nice, I like him." As Albus spoke Mr. Fortescue levitated the ice-cream bowls onto their table. Albus looked down at his ice-cream. It was red and looked rather plain. He looked over to Mr. Fortescue, who only winked.

Albus dug his spoon in and took a mouthful. "Mmmm! Cherry! And not the disgusting lolly type either!" As Albus went to dig his spoon in again the colour changed to orange. "Yum, Whiz Fizz!" Again the ice cream changed colour. "Sherbet Lemon!"

"Lime, blueberry, strawberry, tropical! Wow! This is the best ice-cream I've ever tasted!" Harry looked over to Mr. Fortescue who had the same wide grin on his face that he'd had the day Harry found himself astounded by the realistic flavours of his ice-cream.

"I'm glad you like it Young Mr. Potter, and seeing as I haven't named it yet, how about you give it a name?"

Albus thought for a second, nearly the whole store watching.

"How about we call it Albylicious?"

Mr. Fortescue laughed a low chuckle, "Albylicious it is then. And to celebrate the launch of this new ice-cream, I'll give a free Albylicious ice-cream to everyone here!" The whole ice-creamery cheered and free Albylicious ice creams were levitated to all of the tables.

**Okay, It's been forever, I know... But I'm up and running again, So REVIEW!!!**


End file.
